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GAZETTE
SEPTEMBER 1989
From the President . . .
When I was elected President of
the Incorporated Law Society, one
of my targets was to seek to
persuade the Law Faculties in the
various Universities to expand their
Degrees to include options in
Business Studies, Economics,
Accountancy and Languages. The
Law Society had put this proposal
to the Universities some years ago
but nothing had come of it.
We decided that it would be
more effective to commence by
talking to the Presidents of the
University Colleges and the Provost
of Trinity College and consequently
they and their Registrars were
invited to Dinner w i t h some
representatives of the Education
Committee and the Vice Presidents
and also, of course, the Director
General and Professors Woulfe and
Sweeney. The result was what
everyone agreed was a tremendous
and stimulating debate on the sub-
ject of Legal Education.
Following t hat mee t i ng, I
received invitations from all the
Colleges to visit them and during
the year travelled with Mr. Ivers and
Professors Woulfe and Sweeney to
U.C.C., the new University of
Limerick, Trinity College and U.C.D.
and we intend to visit U.C.G. shortly.
Again there has been an excellent
exchange of views and whilst we
pushed the objectives I have
mentioned above, the members of
the Law Faculties urged us very
strongly to reconsider our policy of
requiring law graduates to sit our
entrance examination on the grounds
that the standard of law degrees
now was good enough to justify
exemption from double examination
and also that we were losing some
of the best graduates altogether.
Having been involved in the setting
up of our Law School back in the
late 70s and indeed having been
Chairman of the Education Commit-
tee on two occasions, I was well
aware of their feelings in the matter.
As an aside I would have to say
that it is a pity that communication
between the Universities and the
Law Society has been so poor in
the last few years. We now intend
to remedy that and set up a Joint
Committee with them.
When we planned the new Law
School and new training system, it
was not proposed to ask law
graduates to sit our entrance
examination provided they had
covered in their degree course the
six " c o r e " subjects of our
examination. When in 1977 the
Society decided that everyone
seeking entry into its new training
course, starting in 1979, should sit
the entrance examination, law
graduates were exempted from it
until 1982 on the basis that it
would be unfair to impose an
entrance examination on someone
who had embarked or was about to
embark on a law degree course on
the assumption that the conferring
of that degree would mean he/she
would not have to sit the entrance
examination. In between 1982 and
1988 accordingly, law graduates
and non-law graduates alike had to
sit the entrance examination. The
Society has been accused of
operating an informal quota but let
me categorically deny that that
was ever so. Certain students and
s t udent representatives have
con t i nuous ly
repeated
this
allegation, presumably on the basis
that if you keep repeating a slander
long enough, it comes to be
believed. What they have not
informed the media is that in one
of the High Court cases it was
found as a fact that the Law
Society did not operate a quota.
In the only other High Court case
that went to hearing the Judge
stated:
" I can find no evidence to
suggest that the Education
Committee acted in any way
contrary to the principles of
natural justice or fairness of
procedures. At all times they
showed consideration for the
position of candidates and
carried out their statutory obliga-
tions in a fair, reasonable and
objective manner. In fact, it
appears to me that the manner
in which the examination was
conducted, the results assessed
and decisions reached by the
Education Committee after care-
ful consideration was exemplary".
Another allegation is that in
some way places were being kept
for children of solicitors and I was
quoted from a 1978 Council Meet-
ing as having stated that " I could
see no difficulty in having, say, ten
places reserved for families of
members of the profession". The
remainder of the quotation which
was left out was "all other things
being equal". The truncation of
that quotation clearly shows bias
against the Law Society and I name
specifically the
Sunday Tribune
in
this connection. There never has
been, is not and I hope never will
be a policy in the Law Society to
provide separate places for children
of solicitors. I cannot put the posit-
ion more clearly than this.
The question of granting exempt-
ion from the Final Examination/
First Part was debated at the July
and September meetings of the
Law Society when by a very large
majority, it was resolved that all law
graduates of Universities in the
Republic of Ireland will be exempt
from the entrance examination
provided their degrees include
passes in the six subjects of the
Society's Entrance Examination.
Non law graduates must pass
each of six subjects, Tort, Contract,
Property, Constitutional, Company
and Criminal Law but a candidate
who has obtained a pass in three
or more subjects in any one sitting
will be exempted from the subjects
in any repeat sitting.
As you will be aware, this radical
new policy of the Law Society has
been generally very well received.
Whilst the current training system
has served us and the public well
it is time for a change: we are now
part of the Single Market so that
our system not only has to produce
solicitors to serve the people of
Ireland but also must be in a
position to take advantage of the
opportunities for Irish solicitors
inside the European Community.
3 08
Contd. on page 311.