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be useful, and we are assisted by the Solicitors' Law
Stationery Society Ltd. in this. It is intended to make
available a wide range of thes most practical documents
in the very near future, whilst the installation of an
I.B.M. Magnetic Tape Typewriter in the Society is
under consideration. The advantage of
this machine
would be that alterations
in the standard precedents
which might be collected and stored on tapes could be
made readily available
to members, and the Society
would hope to issue a book of precedents to members,
who could then indicate when placing orders with the
Society the precedent to be copied, the names to be
inserted and other minor alterations and the form could
then be swiftly typed from the machine as an engross
ment ready for signature.
I noted a suggestion made at the last meeting of the
Law Society in England that for ease of reference, Acts
and amendments of Acts might be published in loose
leaf bindable form so that amendments could be slotted
in at the appropriate place. Speaking of amendments,
I would exhort the Department of Justice to introduce
legislation similar to that of Sections 42 and 43 of the
Building Societies Act 1874 which provides that Vacates
of Building Societies Mortgages relate back. I cannot see
any reason why we should not bring all Mortgagees into
line and thus avoid an immense amount of difficulty for
purchaser's Solicitors on closing. They must wait some
times for quite a long time for a Release to be executed,
stamped and registered before thier own clients and their
Mortgagees can perfect their own Titles by registration.
A similar section is all that is required, and I am assured
by Senior Conveyancing Counsel that there cannot be
any valid grounds for objection to such a course.
In due course it is hoped to provide a service here
similar to that of the Solicitors' Advisory Service in
England, whereby experts, with a special knowledge of
Solicitors' account and book-keeping and the most effi
cient methods of office management might be available
to members. A service of long standing and the extent of
which may not be fully realised is that provided con
tinually by
the Court and Offices Committee of
the
Privileges Committee, who deal with a wide variety of
members' problems.
PROFESSIONAL NEGLIGENCE INSURANCE
As members will have seen from reading the Annual
Reports of the Council for the past few years the Society
has diligently pursued its investigation into the possibility
of obtaining professional negligence indemnity insurance
for members on reasonable terms. This is an extremely
difficult, and
to date intractable problem. Professional
negligence indemnity insurance is an absolute necessity
for a practising solicitor both for his own protection and
for the protection of his clients. Many of us have claims
free records after many years in practice but this in
itself
is no guarantee against the emergence of an
unexpected claim at any time. We are a profession which
is permanently on risk to our clients. The fact that a
solicitor has practised for many years without making a
mistake is in itself no assurance that a catastrophic claim
may not be around the corner. Somerset Maughan .wrote
a novel or short story, the title of which was " The
Unguarded Hour ". The theme that everyone sooner or
later, sometime in his life acts in a careless, irrational or
uncharacteristic manner,
sometimes with
trivial or
unknown consequences but at other times leading to
disaster. Even the most careful solicitor, in fact even the
most careful professional man in any sphere of life must
at least once in his professional career act in a manner
which falls within the legal category of negligence. He
is a lucky man if that occasion is one which is unattended
by any material loss or damage. Accepting that each of
us must have his unguarded hour it is obvious that
professional negligence insurance is an absolute necessity
for every practitioner.
We are faced with a number of difficulties. In the first
place the insurance companies are not competing for this
particular type of business which in itself is an indication
that over the field as a whole the profit must be small.
A further difficulty of our particular problem is the
possibility of certain offices being unable to obtain any
insurance cover against professional negligence. It is
known that once a claim has been made the premium
will be raised sharply and there may be a disinclination
on the part of the underwriters to renew the policy.
The Council have considered this for a long time and
they have come to the conclusion that the best available
method of ensuring that all members of the profession
will be able to obtain the best terms possible is to form
a group, preferably of the entire profession but if this is
impossible of a large number of offices who would be
willing to insure through the same agency on a mutual
or similar basis so that everybody in the group would be
able to obtain insurance and as the result of disclosure
of the available statistics the partcipants would be satis
fied that the premiums were reasonable.
Two surveys have been made by the Society during
recent years. In the first conducted by the Society some
years ago 775 offices received a questionnaire of which
496 or approximately 63% were returned. Members were
asked to say whether they thought that the Society should
try to organise a group scheme. Practically all the replies
were in the affirmative. The questionnaire also asked for
information as to the number of office personnel including
employers, whether members were insured against profes
sional
negligence, particulars and amounts of claim,
amounts of cover and similar
information. Valuable
information was extracted from the replies. On the basis
of this survey it appears that approximately 300 offices
are interested in group insurance.
In order to interest the insurance companies in any
group scheme a substantial premium income would have
have to be obtained. Anything less than a gross premium
income of £60,000 per annum would hardly attract any
attention from the insurers. It is obvious to me that the
majority of offices which do carry professional negligence
indemnity are grossly under insured. I cannot conceive
that any
office
today could hope to be adequately
covered without a minimum insurance cover of £10,000.
In many offices the amount must be considerably larger
depending on the annual turnover of the business which
would in itself increase the risk of claims as to number
and amount. If the entire profession, over 800 offices in
all could agree among themselves to form a group pro
viding a substantial premium base it would no doubt be
possible to get insurance on a reasonable term because
a gross premium income would be sufficiently attractive
to bring a number of insurers into the market. The
advantage of a group scheme would be that the Society
would obtain reliable information annually as to the
number of claims and the causes of losses. A group
scheme would also insure that members in the group
would be certain of getting insurance. A member would
not be dropped suddenly or have his premium raised
merely because of a single claim. On the other hand a
member who showed a consistently unfavourable record
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