The Gazette 1976

GAZETTE

JUNE/JULY 1976

Extracts from Proceedings of the Council,

17th June, 1976.

(ii)

Notary

Public.

The President sought endorsement of the action

taken by the Society on his direction to object in the

Courts to a lay resident of Shannon Town being

appointed as a Notary Public. The line of action taken

was approved.

It was suggested that the Society's

ppsition in the matter be brought to the notice of

the Faculty of Notaries.

(vi)

Solicitors appearing in the High Court:

Mr. Prentice asked if it would be possible for

solicitors execising their right of audience in the High

Court to indicate their name to the presiding Judge

by presenting their card or otherwise at the opening

of the case. It appeared that many young solicitors were

now exercising their right of audience and Judges were

embarrassed in addressing them, through not knowing

who they were.

(i)

Land

Registry.

A letter from the Registrar recommending the sig-

nature of mays was considered. Mr. Lanigan pointed

out that local authority officers throughout the coun-

try, on whom the profession relied to a large extent,

would not be prepared to sign maps. It was agreed to

publish the letter in the

Gazette

with a footnote draw-

ing attention to the fact that the signing of maps was

not required by the Rules.

(i) Bar

Council:

The Council agreed to draw attention of members

to the undersirability of sending files to Counsel.

(v)

Public

Relations:

The Committee expressed great concern over the

increasingly bad Public Relations accruing to the pro-

fession due to the continuing failure of the Bar to

operate the Criminal Legal Aid scheme. Following

discussion it was agreed to list the matter for the next

Council agenda, in the event of no developments taking

place in the meantime. In reply to a query from the

President and Mr. Pigot, Mr. Beatty indicated that a

reply to the Zander article would be published in

the

Gazette.

The particular article had been published

to acquaint the profession of the arguments which

could be made against it and to give it an opportunity

of putting its own house in order.

Note:

A temporary arrangement whereby Counsel

can appear in Criminal Legal Aid Cases has been

made between the Bar Council and the Minister for

J ustice.

Restriction on Second Apprentice

Th e Council has decided that, as f r om 1st January,

1976. it will not normally grant permission to solicitors

to have a second apprentice indentured to them.

Society for Computers and Law Ltd.

The second Conference of this Society will be held

in Warwick University from 17th to 19th September

on the Practical Benefits of the Compu t er for Lawyers.

There will be demonstrations relating to new systems

for handling time recording, tax modelling, retrieval

of statute law, and drafting of wills and conveyancing

documents. The cost for attending the Conference, in-

cluding all meals and accommodation, will be £37.84.

Application Fo rms should be obtained f r om Mrs. Diana

Wilson, 6 Latton Close, Chilton, near Didcot, O X l l

QSU, England.

ENGLISH CASE

Unqualified persons who only copy material submitted

to them do not "draw or prepare" documents

within the English Solicitors Act

1957

An association, which was formed with the object

of reducing the high cost of conveyancing, undertook

for its members, on payment of a fee, the general

conduct of the members' property transactions. The

association retained £2.50 of a fee paid and passed

the remainder to one of its transfer agents, who under-

took all the work involved in the transaction except

drafting the instrument of transfer or conveyance. The

draft was prepared by R, who was not a person quali-

fied for the purposes of section 20 of the Solicitors

Act 1957, and for that work R received no remun-

eration. The defendants, who acted as transfer agents

for the association and were also unqualified for the

purposes of the section, were found by the justices to

have directly or indirectly prepared such instruments

and they were convicted of offences, contrary to section

20(1) of the Act.

On the defendants' appeal against conviction: —

Held,

allowing the appeal, that "directly or indirectly"

in section 20 (1) of the Act related to the words "draws

or prepares" and the offence created by the subsection

was the drawing or preparing, whether directly or in-

directly, of an instrument that was prohibited by the

section from being so drawn by an unqualified person

(post, pp. 582b-d, 583b, h-584a); that

(per

Lord Widgery

C.J. and O ' Connor J.) the concept of "draws and

prepares" was the use of the intellect to compose the

document by the selection of the correct words and

to place them in the right sequence so that the docu-

ment expressed the intention of the parties and, there-

fore, since the defendants had not drawn or prepared

the documents within the meaning of the section, they

had committed no offence.

Per Goff J. If an unqualified person doese any of the

relevant acts, either himself or through another, he

commits an offence under section 20 of the Act. The

question whether the defendants did a prohibited act

through R depended on whether they assumed respon-

sibility for the particular act to the lay client. Having

regard to all the facts, it was R who alone assumed

responsibility to the clinet (post, p. 584a-c).

(Lord Didgery C.J., O ' Co n n or and Goff J.J. -

10 March 1976 - [1976] W. L. R. Queens Bench

Division Court.

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