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Solicitors Bill Dominates A.G.M
A cross section of the attendance at the Law Society Annual General Meeting.
Debate
on
the
Solicitors
(Amendment) Bill, 1991 dominated
the proceedings of the Society's
Annual General Meeting that took
place in Blackhall Place on
Thursday, 14 November, 1991.
Business/Accounts
Minutes Of the previous General
Meeting were adopted without
amendment.
Frank Daly,
outgoing Chairman of
the Finance Committee, reported
that there had been a surplus in the
annual accounts to December,
1990 of £67,837. The Society had
the dubious privilege of paying
£36,000 in tax. He said that he
expected a surplus next year.
Mr.
T.C. Gerard O'Mahony
referred
to the accounts. He said the cost
of maintaining the Law Society per
solicitor had risen from £29 in 1971
to £357 per solicitor in 1990. The
outgoing President,
Donal Binchy,
said that costs were very carefully
monitored by the Director General
and were kept to a minimum. Mr.
O'Mahony queried what the liability
of individual members of the
Society would be for its debt. Frank
Daly replied the liability would be nil
since the Society was incor-
porated. Mr. O ' Mahony also
enquired about the report on the
Law Soc i e ty by a t eam of
management consultants. The
Director General,
Noel Ryan,
said a
firm of management consultants
had been commi s s i oned to
examine the operation and staffing
of the Law Society. The consultants
had subjected the Society to a
rigorous examination including the
level of staffing, salaries, and
divisons of responsibility. It had
been considered to be an op-
portune time to engage in such a
process to co-incide wi th the
appointment of a new Director
General. The President said the
objective was to have a trim
operation that was not overstaffed,
but, rather, adequately staffed to
meet the obligations and duties
placed on the Law Society. The draft
report of the management con-
sultants was now being considered
by a steering committee as to how
best it might be implemented.
Mr. O'Mahony also expressed
concern about the cost of expendi-
ture and maintenance on the
Society's premises. He said the
cu r r ent report showed t hat
expenditure for the four years prior
to 31 December, 1990 was in
excess of £1m and it was extimated
that more than £300,000 had been
spent prior to that. Furthermore, he
noted the Premises Committee was
gravely concerned about imminent
subs t an t i al expenses to be
incurred. Replying,
Stephen Maher,
outgoing Chairman of the Premises
Committee, said that the Law
Society's premises were the envy
of every other profession in the
country. The building provided
excellent f ac i l i t i es for
the
secretariat and for meetings and
seminars. The expenditure on the
premises had to be considered in
the context of what it would cost
to rent office space. Mr. Maher said
he estimated that the cost of
renting office space would be
£300,000 to £400,000 per annum.
Whatever money had been spent
on the premises had been well and
carefully spent. He said he could
not give an exact figure for the
current value of the premises but
they were insured for £17m.
The reports of the various
committees as published in the
Annual Report 1990-1991 were
adopted.
Solicitors (Amendment) Bill
1991
Under any other business there
was a wide ranging discussion of
the Solicitors (Amendment) Bill,
1991. There was a large number of
speakers; what follows is a cross
section of contributions. The
President,
Donal Binchy,
said that,
back in 1984, the Department of
Justice had offered the Law
Society the opportunity to become
involved in discussions on the Bill.
The Society had accepted the offer
fully aware that it would have to
maintain the utmost confidentiality
about the discussions. The Society
had reposed its confidence in the
Solicitors Bill Committee. The
Committee, he said, had operated
very successfully. A number of
positive provisions in the Bill had
been sought by the Society.
Furthermore, the Committee had
been successful in neutralising a
number of potentially negative
provisions. It also had to be
remembered that a number of very
unpalatable provisions had ended
up on the cutting room floor thanks
to the i n t e r ven t i on of the
Committea However, it would have
been unrealistic to have expected
that the Bill would not contain
provisions that t he profession
wou ld oppose. The President
emphasised that the Law Society's
public response to the Bill when it
was published on Friday, 25
October, 1991 had been a pre-
liminary one. The entire profession
had been informed immediately of
the contents of the Bill. A very
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