The Gazette 1981

INCORPORATED LAW SOCIETI OF IRELAND

Vol. 75, No.2

Our Apprentices

is - or should be - a truism that the only successful

contract is one in which each party feels entirely satisfied

that his or her interests are adequately and fairly provided

for - and that, if an element of mutual compromise is

involved, such compromise is as fair as it can

be,

from the

point of view of each party.

must be a very inexperienced or unthinking (or,

perhaps, cynical) solicitor who can permit a client to enter

into an agreement which that solicitor and client know to

be weighted against the other party; on the general, if

obscure, proposition that worms turn, sooner or later that

other party is likely to discover ' the extent of the dis–

advantage and to seek redress.

The relationship of master and apprentice is one of

contract and, with the emergence in April of another

ninety-six apprentices from their first six months of

intensive practical training in the Society's Law School,

this may be an appropriate time to look again at that

contract.

On the part of the apprentice, the essential commit–

ment is "well and faithfully to serve the master" during

the term of the apprenticeship. For the master, the

commitment is more specific - including "providing the

apprentice with such facilities in the master's office as are

necessary to enable the apprentice to learn the practice

and profession of a solicitor" and, "by the best ways and

means he can and to the utmost of his skill and knowl–

edge, to teach and instruct the apprentice ... in the prac–

tice and profession of a solicitor".

In addition, the master will also have executed an

Undertaking whereby,

inter alia,

he has agreed to pay the

apprentice adequately,' to provide sufficient space for the

apprentice, and to ensure that the apprentice obtains

reasonable exposure in all the areas of the office's prac–

tice.

In considering the terms and conditions surrounding

the relationship of master and apprentice, it is essential to

realise that the apprentice with whom we are now dealing

is a very different being from that of yesteryear. The new

apprentice is likely to be a

lawyer,

holding a university

law degree, before becoming apprenticed. The first six

months of apprenticeship will be spent in the Society's

Law School learning how to put into practice the legal

knowledge the apprentice has gained in college. Thus, the

apprentices who will be coming into their master's offices

this April should be well able to play a useful and

constructive role in the office and, in a comparatively

March 1981

Our Investment?

short space of time, to become a "fee-earner". The

m~~e.r's

duty to provide the apprentice with the necessary

facilities to learn and to teach and instruct the apprentice,

must be considered in this context.

Although in general the arrangements work wdl and to

the satisfaction of both parties, it has been found by the

Law School administration, through its regular dis–

cussions with apprentices and visits to masters' offices

that not all masters are honouring their Undertakings. '

To deny the apprentice a room

II'

a telephone, or even

- as has happened - a desk to sit a and a chair to sit on

and to fail to provide the apprentice with sufficient work

just~fy

those years of legal education and training, is as

shortsighted and as destructive as it is a breach of the

m~ster's .co~tract.

For

master to fail an apprentice in

this unthinkmg manner

to put the apprentice into the

position of the aggrieved party to the contract· as the

apprentice acqwres more knowledge and, with that

knowledge, more confidence, the apprentice will seek

some for"? of

redre~s.

That redress can take many forms,

from passive to active but, whatever form it may take, it

can only lead to soured relationships between apprentice

and master and, worse, between apprentice and the

profession.

At the same time, the apprentice must not expect red

carpets to appear, miraculously, down every corri or he

travels. A great deal of a solicitor's life is spent upon

poorly remunerated "donkey work" and the apprentice

must expect his fair share. The apprentice must be

prepared to pay such menial dues as may be necessary to

find his way around the ever-increasing range of bureau–

cratic offices with which the profession is involved and to

discover how such offices may be used to the best advan–

tage of both. Above all, the apprentice - in today's

economic climate - is arguably fortunate to have found a

master at all and must, to some extent, be prepared to

take a little rough with the smooth.

But the fact that demand for apprenticeships, at

present, far exceeds the supply is no justification for a

master to' abrogate his

~de

of the contract. To do so is

not alone unfair, unkind and probably harmful to the

profession as a whole - it is to turn one's back on what

.may well be the first opportunity, in the history of the

profession, to acquire a properly qualified and properly

trained assistant who should be worth his or her weight in

the gold which both the apprentice and the profession

have invested in his or her education.