The Gazette 1981

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INCORPORATED LAW SOCIETY OF IRELAND GAZETTE
Vol. 75, No. 6 July/August 1981
In this i s s u e . . .
Comment 127
Judicial Attitudes to the
Construction of Written
Contracts 129
Adventure into Advertising 135
Central Office Delays in High
Court Default Judgments.. 136
Professional Fees for Road Traffic
Acts 136
Mayo Solicitors Bar Association... 146
County Galway Solicitors Bar
Association 146
Exclusion Clauses in Contracts for
the Sale of Goods 147
Executive Editor: Mary Buckley
Editorial Board: Charles R. M. Meredith
Chairman
John F. Buckley
William Earley
Michael V. O'Mahony
Maxwell Sweeney
Advertising Liam Ó hOisin
Manager: Telephone: 3 0 5 2 36
The views expressed in this publication, save where other
wise indicated, are the views of the contributors and
not necessarily the views of the Council of the Society.
Published at Blackhall Place, Dublin 7.
Comment . . .
ST A T U TORY Instrument Number 2 37 of 1981, dated
30th June 1981, in a few brief words, has eliminated
a legal institution of more than 1 00 years — the statutory
Town Agent.
Twenty or thirty years ago, a number of Dublin
practices acted as Town Agent for their more distant
colleagues. Over the years since then, Dublin
representation has narrowed itself down until, today, one
firm enjoys almost a complete monopoly of agency
practice.
The legal requirement that all Solicitors should
maintain an office within convenient walking distance of
the seat of justice dates from more spacious days, before
the invention of the internal combustion engine and the
telephone and of the other even more sophisticated
electronic communication devices which are becoming
increasingly widespread. In those days, the only practical
means of affecting service of court documents was to
deliver them in person. While this was practicable for Dublin
City Solicitors, whose offices would in any event be
situated within, at most, a mile or two of each other, it
was clearly impossible for, s a y, a Cork Solicitor to effect
personal service on a Solicitor in Sligo. So arose the
requirement that all practitioners should maintain a town
office, originally within the municipal boundary of Dublin
City and later within two miles of the Four Courts,
between whom could be passed all formal documentation
from and between the further flung reaches of the
profession.
While the system undoubtedly had its uses, it was
arguably unreasonable that two Solicitors, practising next
door to each other in Tralee, should be required to effect
service of documents upon each other through a token
Dublin office within walking distance of Inns Quay. It has
been obvious for some years that the anachronism could
not remain for much longer but, to the older practitioner,
the removal of the legal*obligation to maintain a registered
address in Dublin, although welcome, cannot but
represent the end of an era. (The text of the Statutory
Instrument is published on p. 133).D
Incorporated Law Society of Ireland
LAW DIRECTORY,
1982
All completed forms should be returned to the
Society by
3 0 September, 1981
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