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GAZETTE
SEPTEMBER 1991
Younger Members News
"Europe under one hat"?
"Europe under one hat"?.... theme
of the Conference held in The
Hague, Netherlands, from the 13th
to the 16th of June last.
The Conference was attended by
Eva Tobin and Rosemarie Loftus on
behalf of the Younger Members
Committee of the Law Society.
The Conference was attended by
young lawyers from Holland, Rome,
Germany, Italy, Belgium, U.S.A.,
England and Budapest. Everything
centred around the annual closing
ceremony of the legal year which
took place in De, Groteclerk,
Groenmarkt. This Ceremony was
attended by 70 invited delegates
together with other invited Dutch
lawyers. The President of the Young
Bar, M.B. Craemer, welcomed
everybody and gave an intro-
ductory speech and this was
followed by the official announce-
ment of the winner of the 1991
PLEA contest. This contest is held
annually and attracts much
attention in Holland. There was
also a lecture given on the
"Intellectual Property Law through
the Ages" which was a very in-
teresting overview of the evolution
of the law in this area. After the
ceremony an informal lunch was
held where the delegates were
introduced to each other and dis-
cussed the differences between
respective legal professions. It was
noted with interest the fact that in
Holland an advocat and procureur
performs all legal duties. A
procureur signs documents in Civil
cases, makes Court applications
and deals with formal matters,
while an advocat is similar to our
"Solicitor". An advocat may only
work in the District in which he is
admitted and therefore if an
advocat from Amsterdam wishes
to prepare a case for Rotterdam, he
can do so, but he cannot run the
case in Rotterdam himself and
therefore must get a local procureur
to do this. In The Hague there are
very few Solicitors admitted to the
legal profession every year and the
figures range between 30 to 40
Solicitors. Like our system all
advocats must obtain experience
under an apprenticeship of
approximately 3 years.
Much of the conversation
throughout the conference centred
on the open market and 1992. All
nationalities have agreed that the
links between mainland Europe and
Ireland and Britain will increase and
therefore they were pleased to
have made contact with our Law
Society. It seems that all the
nationalities present erroneously
thought that we had a joint legal
system with Britain. In this regard,
the Europeans always contacted
their British contemporaries for
advice and actual handling of work
even if, the subject matter was
within the Irish jurisdiction. Therefore
our presence in Holland assured
direct contact with our Law Society
in the future.
The final evening saw the holding
of a Gala Ball. The theme of the
Conference was again very apparent
in that all persons had to wear a hat
for the evening. This proved to be a
very enjoyable evening and the
Dutch hospitality was superb.
The Conference ended with a
casual but sociable lunch on
Sunday and many invitations were
received by us to Conferences all
over Europe. It is hoped that many
of the delegates present will come
to one of our Conferences here in
Ireland. We have a list of all
delegates' names in attendance in
The Hague and we will be writing
to them individually keeping them
informed of future events in Ireland
and giving them a contact number
in the Law Society for any business
matters which may arise.
All in all, we must stress that
attendance at such a Conference
by Irish delegates is essential to
promote the Irish Legal Profession,
with the hope of creating new
business in the future, and in
particular coming up to the Single
Market in 1992, which, as we all
know is "hot on our heels".
Rosemarie Loftus.
THE SOCIETY OF YOUNG
SOLICITORS 1991 AGM
The Society of Yoiing Solicitors
held its Annual General Meeting on
the 6 July, 1991. The Minutes of
the previous meeting were duly
read and approved after which the
following Officers were appointed
for 1991/1992:
CHAIRMAN:
James McCourt
VICE-CHAIRMAN: Owen O'Sullivan
TREASURER:
Paul White
SECRETARY:
Maureen Walsh
PUBLIC RELATIONS
OFFICER:
Jennifer Blunden
James McCourt
The outgoing Chairman, Colin
Sainsbury, then addressed the
meeting. He paid tribute to
Katharine Delahunt, a former
Chairman who was retiring from
the Committee after five years. A
feature of her period as Chairman
was the commencement of
breakfast meetings for the sub-
committees. The new Chairman,
who had been a former Treasurer
and Vice-Chairman, was wished
every success during his period of
office as the Society commenced
its 26 th year. The outgoing
Chairman further proposed that
joint conferences with the Bar and
(Cont'd, on p.279)
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