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4. The maintenance of high standards of legal
education and professional conduct to the
end that only those properly qualified so to
do shall undertake to perform legal service.
5. The promotion of peace through the develop
ment of a system of international law con
sistent with the rights and liberties ofAmerican
citizens under the Constitution of the United
States.
6. The co-ordination and correlation of the
activities of the entire organised bar of the
United States.
I pause now for a moment to meditate and to
examine the extent to which we are in line with
current Law Society policy, and to consider in
what directions we can extend our activities. The
result is not unsatisfactory.
It was only in 1954 that the Solicitors' Act became
law enabling us as a body to guide and control the
profession.
Since then we have brought into
operation a new and improved system of education
designed
to
ensure
that well-trained,
learned,
practical and competent lawyers will be available
in the future. We have brought into operation too
the professional practice and conduct regulations
designed to eliminate the malpractices and unworthy
conduct which have from time to time in the past
brought discredit to the profession and we have
framed Accounts Rules and Regulations designed
to ensure that the members of the public in their
financial dealings with solicitors are fully and
effectually safeguarded.
But that is not enough.
We must always be applying our minds to ways and
means of giving even better service. The
first
direction in which one's thoughts turn is that, in
contrast to the majority of other countries, there
is no legal aid system, either with the assistance of
the State or on a voluntary basis.
I am proud to
say that in practice it has not made much difference
in that any person with a good and valid claim has
never had to fear that he would be unable to have
it presented on the ground of lack of means only,
but a citizen in such a case has to depend upon the
favour of the legal profession.
Perhaps for this
reason there has been no public demand, but
expressing my own personal opinion might I say
that the time is now ripe when the State should
fall in line with other countries and among its
services offer, in deserving cases, a contribution
towards the cost of maintaining and prosecuting
claims for essential rights. And if we are to ask
the State to help should .we not ourselves consider,
perhaps through the Bar Associations, the provision
of some scheme, either of consultation or on a
lawyer referral basis, whereby a panel of solicitors
would be made available to help persons seeking
and requiring legal advice.
There is also the need for the Law Society to
adopt a new approach in its system of Public
Relations.
In the past, the Society has hidden its
head under a bushel and in consequence there has
been in existence in some quarters a wholly mistaken
conception of solicitors and their work and their
remuneration.
I suggest, and I am expressing
my personal opinion, that the time is now ripe to
undertake a vigorous good-will programme so
that the public will understand solicitors and the
solicitors' profession.
This could well take the
form of articles contributed to the Press and period
icals, of lectures, perhaps broadcasts, talks with
the basic object of providing information to the
public and of the need for legal advice in situations
where lawyers are not normally consulted and of
acquainting them with their rights, privileges and
liabilities.
It follows, too, that another direction in which
the Society can help the public is by the scrutiny
of impending legislation, and by the publication
of constructive criticism designed to draw the
attention of Deputies and the public to provisions
which, though innocuous in appearance, may well
affect citizens in their public and property rights.
Above all, we should always be on guard to object
to provisions giving Ministers and their officers
power to decide questions affecting individual rights
without the safeguard of review by a
judicial
tribunal.
The complicated machinery of a modern State
tends to require the regulation of its functions by
Statute, Ministerial Order or administrative direction,
and the result has been to make the legal .system a
jungle which is impenetrable to those who have
no safe guide.
It is here that the task of the legal profession has
become increasingly important and necessary;
so
that the public need representatives in whom they
can repose confidence and who can guide them.
We are now living in one of the periods of
profound revolution. Challenged are the institutions
which we have believed to be the fruit of man's
long struggle towards freedom.
Impugned are the
religious faiths that for us are the core of conscience.
The world has gasped in horror at the recent events
in Hungary.
The hearts of the freedom loving
world have gone out in sympathy to the gallant
fighters of Hungary;
and their appeals for help •
have been answered and will be answered in the
most generous and practical way.
The lesson is obvious. The peace of the world
depends on the general observance of the rule of
law—a rule based on principles of Christian charity