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The Incorporated Law Society of Northern Ireland
The more important developments which have taken
place in Northern Ireland in relation to the Solicitors'
Branch of the legal profession are summarised below.
1. Remuneration
Th e Remuneration of Northern Ireland Solicitors
in conveyancing matters is mainly regulated by
ad val-
orem
scales. In the lower Courts remuneration of both
Barristers and Solicitors is likewise regulated by scales.
Th e remuneration of Solicitors in connection with
proceedings in the High Court and in connection with
the Administration of Estates is regulated partly by
fixed fees but predominantly by discretionary fees in
the assessment of which regard has to be had to
a number of specified factors.
Where scales are used they are on
ad valorem
basis
relating to the value of the property being transferred
or which is the subject matter of the legal proceedings
or claim.
The Society has become concerned at the ever in-
creasing cost of the overheads of running a Solicitors
practice but has recognised that the revision of the
ad
valorem
scales is complicated by the fact that the values
of property and goods have also risen as a result of in-
flation.
Accordingly the Society has commissioned Professor
J. A. Bates, Head of the Department of Business Studies
of the Queen's University of Belfast t o conduct a sur-
vey of Solicitors' remuneration. This survey will com-
prise two exercises.
The first exercise will be to consider the effect over
the last few years on Solicitors' remuneration, where
it is governed by
ad valorem
scales, of the fall in the
value of money and the rise in the value of property
and goods.
The second exercise will comprise a study of the
effect over-the same period of the remuneration, profit
margins and real income of Solicitors from all sources.
A questionnaire, the completion of which it is felt is
not unduly onerous, has now been issued to all mem-
bers of the Society.
In commissioning this survey and formulating the
questionnaire it was recognised that the major obstacle
to obtaining a satisfactory response with the traditional
reluctance of the legal profession to disclose, to any-
one other than their Accountant or the Inland Revenue
their actual profits or income.
T o endeavour to overcome this obstacle Professor
Bates has given an undertaking that the confidential
information incorporated in the replies to the question-
naire will be maintained by him in the strictest con-
fidence and not made available to any assistant or
stored on a computer and that it will be destroyed
when the survey has been completed. It has been
arranged that the questionnaires may be returned to
Professor Bates either by the Solicitor concerned or by
his Accountant. If the questionnaire is returned by
the Accountant it will only be necessary for the Ac-
countant to indicate to Professor Bates that he is for-
warding the questionnaire on behalf of an unnamed
Solicitor or firm of Solicitors.
In regard to the fixed fees pertaining to High Court
Litigation new Rules of Court have recently been en-
acted and will come into operation in the middle of
September providing for a 35% increase. This is sim-
ilar to the increase granted in England and Wales a
few months ago. Having regard to the time which has
elapsed since these fees were last revised this increase
is not regarded as adequate but nonetheless it is the
most that can be obtained within the terms of pres-
ent government policy.
2. Monopolies Commission
Th e investigation by the Monopolies Commission of
the restrictions on advertising by the legal profession
in Scotland and in England and Wales does not ex-
tend to Northern Ireland. Nonetheless the Society has,
at the request of the Commission, given an undertak-
ing that the Society will have due regard to the find-
ings of the Commission and will reconsider, in the
light of the Commission's findings, the Society's own
Regulations.
3. Legal Education
The report of the Committee on Legal Education in
Northern Ireland which was presented to Parliament
in September 1973 recommended that the system
whereby intending Solicitors served a period of three
years under Indentures of Apprenticeship should be
abandoned and that both Barristers and Solicitors
should acquire their academic knowledge at universities
and thereafter should undergo a one year full time
course of vocational training at a new Institute of Legal
Education which would form part of the Queen's
University of Belfast.
A Working Party, representing the University, the
Barristers profession and the Society has been making
arrangements for such a revised system of education to
be introduced and considerable progress has been made.
It is currently envisaged that the new Institute of
Legal Education will be established and commence
operation in September 1976.
4. Solicitors' (NX) Order 1975
New legislation pertaining to the government of the
Solicitors' profession in Northern Ireland has been
pending since May 1971 but owing to the changes
in legislative arrangements pertaining to Northern
Ireland which have occurred over the last few years
this legislation has not yet been enacted. However it is
presently understood that the legislation will be laid
before Parliament at the beginning of 'the next ses-
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