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Tribute to Mr. Justice Lavery
by FRANK CONNOLLY, Solicitor
Tributes paid in the courts to the work of Chief
Justice W. O'B. Fitzgerald on the announcement of his
death referred to some similarities in the career of the
deceased and the late Mr. Justice Lavery who died in
1966. Though unlike in many ways, each had been
exceptionally successful at the Irish Bar. Both had very
quick minds, and were advocates of the first order. Each
was a member of the highest court in the land at the
time of his death.
The essentials of good advocacy in the courts are :
plain and orderly presentation of fact stated succinctly
and accurately, sagacity and mastery of the rubrics of
the law. Contrary to what at first sight might seem
necessary, eloquence, though useful, is not essential;
indeed, it must be used sparingly, and with great astute-
ness in legal proceedings; otherwise, it may give the
impression that a claim is founded on little more than
humbug, and create revulsion. On the other hand,
eloquence, if used with moderation and in appropriate
cases, may be helpful because by interesting the hearer,
it helps to relieve the tedium of listening to long hair-
splitting arguments, and it may illuminate in a striking
way some facet of an issue worthy of note.
Although Cecil Lavery is rightfully considered to
have been one of the greatest exponents of advocacy in
Ireland during the last fifty years, he was not an especi-
ally attractive speaker. In addressing an audience on
non-legal subjects he could experience difficulty in hold-
ing their attention; but by constant endeavour, he
made himself into a superb polemicist in jurisprudence.
Born in Armagh of a legal family; in person Cecil
Lavery was tall and not very strongly built, but until
late in life he enjoyed good health. Without any egoism
or conceit invariably he was polite and correct in beha-
viour, except that in the conduct of business he would
not tolerate unnecessary repetition or verboseness. In
pursuance of his policy of self-restraint, he studiously
avoided personal quarrels or angry scenes. This is not to
say that there was excessive pliancy in his character :
on the contrary, if he thought that he was being badly
treated, he would make firm protests; and, if necessary,
take salutary action, irrespective of how rancorous he
knew the matter might become. Calculation in all things
to the utmost degree possible was one of the guiding
precepts of his life. Following this rule he gave a great
deal of thought to the careful apportionment of his
time; he thereby avoided dissipating his energies, and
as a result he was able to do his work more thoroughly.
By the time he was approaching the zenith of his
career as an advocate, he had to compete with many
other talented and well-known counsel, for instance :
A. Dickie, K.C., A. Wood, K.C., J. A. Costello, S.C.,
P. McGilligan, S.G., John M. Fitzgerald, S.C., and
Basil McGuckin, S.C.; and he was a match for all of
them. Lacking
ÍIL
the seductive charm in address of
Basil McGuckin; not as polished an orator as John A.
Costello; and without the wide erudition of Patrick
McGilligan) nevertheless, Cecil Lavery was endowed
with an unusually powerful intelligence, with great
penetrating force capable of the nicest subtleties and
exactness in argument.
The present writer, while in private practise, had
the pleasure of briefing him in Court, and believes that
the strongest weapons in his forensic armoury were :
a truly amazing power of exposition in addressing any
forum; skill as a legal dialectician developed almost to
the point of genius; good judgment; and the gift of
being able to discern the decisive point in a complex
matter. In the course of exposition it was his habit to
refer to the salient features in his case in all their
aspects, point out the deductions to be made from
them, and elaborate on the implications in support of
his thesis in such a way as to exercise almost mesmeric
power in persuading the forum to accept his submission.
If an opponent appeared to have successfully breached
his contention, such was the ingenuity of his mind and
the fertility of his resources as a result of his immense
stores of knowledge of law that he could deploy
instantly further arguments equally as good as his
initial line of reasoning, buttressed by the citation of
numerous precedent court decisions. Notwithstanding
that he had an analytical brain and could see many
strengths and weaknesses in every case, the logical
faculty of his intellect was so acute that his assessment
as to the view a Court was likely to take on any question
was virtually unerring. In an intricate problem it is
frequently hard to pick out the decisive or overriding
factor which governs the correct solution of the matter,
and this difficulty is well summed up in the old saying
of not being able to see the wood for the trees. Cecil
Lavery was never puzzled by a test of that kind; for he
had the ability to divine the item in a field of inquiry
on which everything hung, and which once moved,
sets the rest going.
Normally his mode of speech in addressing a tribunal
was commonplace and businesslike, notable for its
absence of colour, flights of imagination or other
embellishment, though now and then containing force-
ful passages, if the occasion warranted it. He could,
however, make use of simile, metaphor or other imagery
very effectively to illustrate his arguments. Also, al-
though it was a rare occurrence,, he was capable of
rising to heights of great eloquence, as anybody who
listened to his opening address to the jury in Dan
Breen's libel actipn against the
Evening Mail
will
remember.
On the election of the first Inter-Party Government
in 1948 headed by Mr. John A. Costello, S.G., Cecil
Lavery was appointed Attorney-General, and also con-
tinued his private practice at the Bar. He proved to be
very competent in his new post; and his advice to the
Government and State Departments were extremely
valuable.
In 1950, two years later, a vacancy occurred in the
Supreme Court, upon the resignation of Mr. Justice
Geoghegan, which he was selected to fill. Despite his
elevation Mr. Justice Lavery made very little change in
his style of utterance; though most of his work there-
after was embodied in written judgments. His written
English is not particularly elegant; it contains no
subtleties or flashes of imagination; nothing very
arresting or striking; and virtually no literary graces of
any kind. But it has the good qualities of being clear,
uncomplicated," robust and vigorous; displaying great
depth of thought and shot through with practical
shrewdness. Nevertheless, , it cannot compare with that