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wiser than in the United Kingdom
in that they had spent a great deal
of time thinking about these issues
and planning for them before the
wind of change actually hit. He went
on to say that the great malaise in
the profession in many jurisdictions
at the moment is the inability
actually to take decisions. He said
that many partners' meetings
consist of matters merely being
brought forward repeatedly and,
although ideas are generated,
nothing ever gets done. He urged us
at least to take one or t wo ideas
away from the seminar and make
some actually happen.
He warned against complacency
and the view that the kind of
competition wh i ch has hit lawyers
in the United Kingdom will not
touch Ireland. He said that the
" f r i e n d l y" building societies had
turned out to be not quite so
friendly and were now looking at
the legal market w i th eager eyes.
He said that our day too would
come and pointed out that already
accountants and banks were taking
work wh i ch was properly ours.
He brought a sobering note to
the talk when he said that solicitors
in the United Kingdom had decided,
when there was no other com-
petition, to practise on themselves
and had entered into a destructive
price-cutting war. He commended
the Irish Law Society because, in
its consideration of whether to
allow advertising, it had, in any
event, set its face against price
ad v e r t i s i ng. He ad v i s ed t he
profession in Ireland to stand firm
on that issue. He said there was a
new breed of client — more
sophisticated, more consumer-
minded, less loyal and more likely
to change solicitor midstream. He
said that the task, above every-
thing, was to protect existing
clients and to begin to develop from
that base.
He went on to take us on a
fascinating journey into our dead
file rooms and asked us to consider
the banks of files wrapped in brown
envelopes stacked along the damp
walls. He told us that we were
making files dead and storing them
in that way at the same time as our
competitors in the large institutions
were striving to get clients' names
on their computer data-base in
order to keep them alive for ever!
He urged us never again to make a
file dead but by systems of diary
and regular review to keep our
existing clients alive and service
them regularly.
I am sure that all those who at-
tended the seminar will remember
Robert Parsons showing us the
"gratitude curve" illustrating the
philosophy that you must always
bill a client immediately the work is
finished. It is simply no use at all
waiting for three months to bill. By
then clients believe they do not owe
you the money at all and then the
only way to collect is to write
letters wh i ch say, " N ow we are
very, very, very,
very,
c r oss !" He
said you must bill at the peak of the
client's gratitude. Somebody asked
the question, "Wh a t if the client is
u n g r a t e f u l ?" Robe rt Parsons
answered "Bill at the top of the
ingratitude
curve — it's not going
to get any be t t e r !"
John Loosemore began t he
a f t e r noon w ih " Bu d g e t i ng for
Profit" and showed very simply
how we should begin to ensure that
our practices actually make money!
He said that our banking arrange-
me n t s we re a v i t al pa rt of
profitability and yet many firms
were losing tens of thousands of
pounds a year on their banking
deal. He urged us to have a very
close look at clearance terms
wh i ch were agreed w i th our banks
and rates of interest earned and
paid on client account. He said that
he felt that Irish banks ought to pay
interest on current client account
moneys, as they do in the United
Kingdom — this would save enor-
mous administration and effort on
the part of the profession and, even
more i mpo r t an t, wo u ld allow
solicitors to see clearly the monies
on wh i ch they should be receiving
interest. He added that banks often
" f u d g e d" the issue w i th regard to
interest and charges and most
solicitors simply did not know on
what basis they were paying.
He went on to talk to us about
some standardisation of legal work
that has occurred in his own
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practice by the use of precedent
letters and forms, interview sheets
and progress sheets. He said that
such a system not only helped in
efficient training but acted as a
useful "aide memo i r e" to ex-
perienced solicitors. It allowed
matters to be supervised properly,
particularly when a solictor was
sick or on holiday. It also ensured
that nobody missed either legal or
commercial aspects of a trans-
action and, most important, helped
firms avoid negligence claims!
When the speaker turned to
computers many feared that they
were in for a "hard sell". They were
wrong. Mr. Loosemore urged us
first to have a manual system
wh i ch worked effectively before
considering computerisation. He
said t hat many compu t e r i sed
conveyancing packages sold in the
U.K. were merely "glorified word
processing" although some more
sophisticated " e x p e r t" systems
were being developed. He urged
the value of a good debt collection
package, saying that this could be
a fantastic entrée to commercial
wo rk as it had been in his own
practice
104