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GAZETTE
N O V
E M B E R
1983
At the Presentation of Parchments ceremony on the 17th of November 1983, Mr.
Thomas V. (Val) O'Connor, Past
President of the Law Society, presented his youngest son, Tony, with his parchment. Mr. O'Connor's three other sons,
Tom, Pat and John are also solicitors. Also in the picture is Professor Laurence Sweeney, the Society's Director of
Training.
I NCOR PORAT ED LAW SOCIETY OF I RELAND
IMPORTANT NOTICE
SOLICITORS' ACCOUNTS REGULATIONS 1967 (AS AMENDED)
ACCESS TO CLIENTS FILES
The Compensa t i on Fund Committee of the Society has recently made a ruling on the
question of the auditors' access to clients files.
It will not be satisfactory, in future, to deprive an auditor from the examination of
clients files purely on the grounds of privilege. The auditor has specific duties under the
Solicitors' Accounts Regulations and it is the Society's view that these duties can only
be carried out by vouching the transactions in the books of account with the
suppor t i ng files. It should not be necessary, however, to disclose the entire file to the
audi tor but the correspondence covering payments/receipts should be made available
to the audi tor.
A policy decision has been made by the Society to investigate any solicitor's practice
who refuses that auditor access to clients files. Where the Society appoints an
accoun t ant pur suant to Section 20 of the Solicitors' Accounts Regulations 1967 as
amended, the said accountant has the statutory right to inspect all of the relevant files,
vouchers, etc.
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