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GAZETTE
SEPTEMBER 1984
Combining Business With Pleasure:
The Objective of Many, The Achievement of Few
by
David Andrews*
This article seeks to explain why The International Bar Association has relevance to every practising lawyer.
A
LTHOUGH many Irish practitioners in their day to
day work deal as a matter of course with Lawyers in
the U.K., U.S.A., Australia, Canada or New Zealand, I
suspect that they would be surprised to find themselves
described as "International Lawyers". That term
probably connotes to them some high powered jet-setting
individual whose firm has offices scattered throughout
the world. Yet the average Irish solicitor perhaps
practising in the West of Ireland and struggling to
administer a modest estate with next of kin in Coventry,
Chicago and Canberra is just as much an International
Lawyer as his more glamorous colleague.
The International Bar Association embodies the means
of providing every practising lawyer in the world with
widened horizons, down to earth assistance with the
problems and hurly burly of everyday practice and the
stimulation of discussing legal and professional matters
with colleagues from enormously varied backgrounds,
and working environments. Perhaps most important of
all, it provides the opportunity for enhancing the scope of
one's practice as well as increasing personal fulfilment
and experience which flows naturally from encountering
and forging links with professional colleagues from other
pars of the world, and even sometimes from one's own
part of the world!
In to-day's fast moving and complex society no lawyer
should content himself with, or expect to provide an
adequate service to his or her clients by ignoring the wider
world around us. Clients are travelling more for both
business and pleasure and broadening their horizons and
personal dealings. Business and Industry, whether
national or international can no longer escape the impact
of international laws and regulations, and it follows that
the competent professional adviser must be prepared to
respond in an enlightened manner to these changing
circumstances.
As a profession we should realise that we are lucky to
have the International Bar Association to serve us, and to
help us to serve others better.
Too many of us too lightly deprive ourselves of the
advantages it has to offer simply because we do not take
the trouble to stop to think and to find out.
What is the International Bar Association? (IBA)
The IBA originated in 1947 as an association of bar
associations and law societies with (
inter alia)
the objects
as set out below. The idea of individual lawyer member-
ship came at a later date and the first individual members
were, perhaps not surprisingly, comprised for the most
part of lawyers whose field of practice was predominantly
concerned with international business law and whose
clients tended to include a predominance of corporations,
rather than individual members of the community and
their families. The "Section on Business Law" ("SBL")
was consequently the first section to be formed (in 1970)
for individual members and its activities covered an ever-
increasing number of aspects of specialised, international,
business law topics.
It was, nevertheless, realised increasingly that there was
a large body of the legal professions throughout the world
which, whilst concerning itself with traditional fields of
practice, served the needs of private individuals across
the whole spectrum of law governing the ordered conduct
of society generally — that body of lawyers truly carrying
on the general practice of the law. They not only
originated from the traditional, historical attorney,
dating back to the beginning of the civilised community,
but they have also always represented, and still do
represent, the largest section of the legal professions
throughout the world. The concept of a lawyer
"specialising" more or less exclusively in business matters
is a relatively recent phenomenon.
Consequently the "Section on General Practice"
("SGP") which might well have been formed first, was
only established as recently as 1974, aiming to bring the
benefits of association to the enormous field of general
practitioners of the law everywhere. In 1983, a third
section was created as a direct result of the exceptional
growth and level of activity of one of the "Committee" of
the SBL, the new Section having the title "Section on
Energy and Natural Resources Law" ("SERL").
The Objects of the IBA are set out in its Constitution.
For present purposes we may confine ourselves to the first
three Objects, namely:—
1. To establish and maintain relations and exchanges
between Bar Associations and Law Societies and
their members throughout the world.
2. To assist such Associations and Societies and
members of the legal profession throughout the
world to develop and improve the profession's
organisation and status.
3. To assist members of the legal profession through-
out the world, whether in the field of legal education
qr otherwise, to develop and improve their legal
service to the public.
Perhaps these objects may be usefully paraphrased by
saying that the IBA will only be of service to the
community, or justify its existence, if it achieves the
following:
(i) improvement in the standard of legal services
provided to the public client body;
(ii) improvement in the standing and image of the
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