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Patrick O'Connor Memorial Prize
During the year Mr. Val O'Connor of Swinford
presented the Society with a sum of £100 to found
a prize in memory of his late father, Patrick
O'Connor.
The Council gratefully accepted this donation and
directed that the sum be invested and that the
income be awarded annually as a prize for the best
marks in the equity paper in each year.
I would like publicly to acknowledge our very
great appreciation to Mr. Val O'Connor for his
generosity and to express on your behalf our
gratitude to him for founding this prize which I
have no doubt will be eagerly sought in years to
come.
Scan O'hUadhaigh Memorial Prize
The Comhdhail Naisiunta na Gaelige indicated
some time ago that they would wish to found a
prize in memory of the late Scan O'hUadhaigh, to
encourage proficiency and interest in spoken Irish.
After discussions with the Society it was agreed that
the Society would award the prize on the result of
the first Irish examination. The prize is £50 and has
been first awarded this year.
Solicitors' Benevolent Association
When speaking to you last May I reminded you of
your obligations
to
the Solicitors' Benevolent
Association and asked you to join if you had not
already done so and if you were already a member
to try and procure at least one new member.
It is only those who have served as directors of
the Association who can really appreciate
the
tremendous hardship which does exist for some
solicitors in their old age, and often for their depend
ants, and I feel that it is up to all of us who are
active and able to earn our living to do something
towards the relief of those in distress.
I understand that 1963 will be the centenary year
of the Association and that the officers are anxious
that it should be marked by a special effort. The
subscription to the Association is very small and the
Association do hope that for next year, as a special
effort, members will give an additional donation.
I need hardly say that I and my colleagues on the
council would entirely endorse and encourage you
to support such an effort.
Common Market
The Council are very much alive to the fact that
new problems will face us when we enter the
Common Market and I think it behoves us all to
endeavour to make ourselves familiar with the basic
provisions of the Rome Treaty and to understand
its implications on this country and, in particular,
on our profession.
It was with this in mind that, in conjunction with
the Benchers of the Kings Inns, a series of lectures
on this topic were sponsored last June. Three
lectures were given by Dr. A. H. Robertson of the
Secretariat of the Council of Europe and were very
well attended.
I would publicly like to state that the initiative in
getting Dr. Robertson to deliver these lectures lay
with the Chief Justice to whom we should all be
extremely grateful. He honoured us by taking the
chair at the lectures which were held in this room.
Since May, when I spoke to you last, there do
not seem to have been any dramatic developments
but the Council will keep this whole problem very
much in mind.
Profession
Personally, I often feel that the public at large do
not appreciate or understand the range and variety
of services which a solicitor has to offer. There is
no doubt that prevention is better than cure but, so
often, a client does not consult a solicitor until such
time as he finds himself in the midst of a dispute or
in some other difficulty, which has assumed undue
proportions.
Of necessity, the lawyer appears most in the press
in relation to litigation and this tends to be the form
of the public image of both solicitors and barristers.
Members of our profession, however, with their
advice and their experience of the law and of the
world can, and frequently do, prevent the occurrence
of disputes. They can assist in individual problems
as well as in the smooth running of business and
commerce, and other matters. This is the side of the
profession that is little known by those who have
not had occasion to benefit from it.
Of the two branches of the profession, the barrister
is the technical lawyer and the solicitor comes much
more in contact with the public in relation both to
business and purely private affairs.
Over the years the average solicitor builds up a
very large fund of practical experience on many
matters not directly questions of law. For those who
appreciate him he can be a very valuable confidante
and can often advise on general problems which, to
the client, appear unusual but which, from his
experience, the solicitor has encountered before and
where he can see how best to cope with the difficulties
without conflict.
It is said that " the man who acts for himself has
a fool for a lawyer" which only illustrates the
obvious, namely
that where one
is personally
involved it is not always easy to see the wood for
the trees. The solicitor has a legally trained mind,
can view any client's problem in an analytical and
detached manner and can so frequently assist and
advise a perplexed and worried client.
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