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electric
typewriters, dictating and copying machines
and an adequate supply of external and internal tele–
phones are as urgent in the Court offices as in any other
branch of the public administration. Judges should have
adequate
secretarial and mechanical assistance. The
procedural requirements under the rules of the High
Court are also unduly complex and some of them un–
necessary. In my view a great saving of public and
professional time would be effected if the mechanical
procedure of the offices attached to the High Court were
modelled on the procedure in the Circuit Court.
Professional Negligence Insurance
The complexity of modern statute law, its ever increasing
change and amendment and
the absence of
readily
accessible and comprehensive
legal
textbooks have in–
creased the incidence of professional negligence claims.
Solicitors are engaged in a risk occupation; a mistake
may cost many thousand pounds and it is essential that
every practitioner should carry adequate insurance. Pre–
miums have been raised steadily over the years and the
Society has continuously sought to find means of effecting
a group insurance scheme.
Unfortunately there are serious practical difficulties
and it has not been possible to devise such a scheme.
The Council however have considered whether it would
be feasible that solicitors taking out professional negli–
gence
insurance should channel
the work through a
single broker. While
insurance would continue to be
effected as at present on individual proposal forms and
not as part of a group, a single broker handling such a
large volume of insurance might be in a position to get
more favourable terms both as to cover and premium.
Such a method might eventually become the forerunner
of a group scheme. The Council hope to issue a circular
to members in the near future.
Circuit Court Costs
About six years ago the Society submitted proposals to
the Circuit Court Rules Committee for a new scale of
costs. The proposals led to series of meetings between
the Society and the Department. Eventually the Circuit
Court Rules Committee about three years ago submitted
proposals
to
the Department which
lay
there until
recently. Now, six years after the original approach and
after three years official silence since the Circuit Court
Rules Committee submitted
thier proposals, we have
received notification
from
the Department
that
the
Minister has given his sanction. Needless to say, financial
and economic conditions have changed greatly during
that period. The fees collected by the State in connection
with Circuit Court proceedings have been
raised by
more than 100 per cent during the same period.
International Bar Association
This year marks the twentieth anniversary of the estab–
lishment of the International Bar Association of which
our Society is a member and in July of next year this
Association will hold
its general meeting
in Dublin.
Twenty-one countries located on five continents consti–
tute the I.B.A. and we are indeed honoured in having
my senior Vice-President, Mr. Patrick Noonan, President
of this International Association for the coming year.
The Society's April
Gazette
contains references to the
matter.
Encroachment by the State on Professional Activities
If the profession is to survive and to play its part as the
defenders of the rights of the citizens it must have a
sound economic base. If the State by its activities weakens
the legal profession it will deprive the citizen of the only
protection which he enjoys against the ever increasing
power of the executive. There have been many occasions
during the past twenty years in which individual citizens
would have suffered in the exercise of their constitutional
rights had it not been for the existence of a free and
independent legal profession in both branches who have
been prepared to bring such cases to Court. Such clients
are very often persons of small means. There is
little
financial reward for the profession if the proceedings are
unsuccessful. There is no system of civil legal aid which
will protect the citizen and afford means of redress in
such cases as there is in England, Scotland and Northern
Ireland. The citizen therefore, depends upon the will
and the ability of the private practitioner to interest
himself in such matters. That will and that ability have
never failed in the past. The ever increasing invasion
by the State on professional activities raises the question
of whether in the future the citizen will have (he same
protection as he has had in the past. If we ever reach
the position, and it may not be too far distant, when the
State, by monopolising legal business reduces the profes–
sion to a small number combined in large offices, the
private citizen will be at the mercy of the executive and
will have lost the protection which he enjoys at present
because of
the personal
relationship with his
legal
advisor. The socialisation of law would mean an ever
increasing dependence of the individual upon the civil
service and we must be always on our guard against the
derogation of the rule of law and on this subject. There
are many things on which I am restrained from discus–
sing
in order that
I may not prejudice approaches
which we are now making to the Government.
Mr. Eric A. Plunkett
This year marks
the twenty-fifth anniversary of Mr.
Eric Plunkett's appointment as Secretary of the Incor–
porated Law Society. Mr. Plunkett was appointed to the
post of Secretary to the Society in the presidency of Mr.
George Acheson Overend. The appointment was made
at the Council meeting of 14th May 1942. His appoint–
ment was greeted with approbation at the half-yearly
general meeting of the Society held on 15th May 1942
and he took up his duty as Secretary on 1st June of that
year. He was educated at Belvedere and Clongowes
Wood Colleges and served his apprenticeship with the
late Mr. John J. McDonald and was admitted as a
solicitor in
the Easter sittings 1932. He continued to
practice with Mr. McDonald's firm at 116 Grafton
Street after qualification.
He was a First Class Honours man and Exhibitioner
of
the National University of
Ireland and obtained
second place in Legal and Political Science at the B.A.
examination held in the autumn of 1930. He obtained
first place in the Society's intermediate examination for
solicitors' apprentices
in 1929 and second place with
Silver Medal in the final examination in October 1931.
He was Auditor of the Solicitors' Apprentices Debating
Society in 1930-31 and was awarded a Gold Medal for
impromptu speaking, Silver Medal for legal debate and
special certificate for oratory in the session 1929-30.
In the course of twenty-five years as chief executive
of
the Society he has enhanced
its
reputation and