784 / 822
over
the work
traditionally
associated with
solicitors, to join the Society and place beyond
peradventure
the
right of our
representative
organ, the Council, to speak with authority to
the Government and
the Legislature
for our
branch of the legal profession.
Before proceeding further,
I would
like
to
place on record
the compliment paid
to our
profession,
through
the
President,
by
the
Government in extending an invitation to the
State Banquet given to the Lord Chancellor of
Great Britain on the occasion of his visit to this
country. I do not know if this was unprecedented,
but I hope it is an augury of a better appreciation
in future on the part of our rulers of the important
place which solicitors play in the affairs of our
country.
Bar Associations
Reverting to the topic of membership of the
Society, I wish to thank the various Bar Associ
ations in Ireland for the co-operation they have
extended and the advice they have given to the
Council during my year of office. I wish that every
district had
its Bar Association.
The Society
would be much more effective, in looking after
your interests, if, in every area, there was a live
organisation doing the work which can be done
so effectively by men intimately acquainted with
persons and facts
in their own locality. Many
abuses which escape notice at long range or are
only detected too late can be nipped in the bud
by a closely-knit body on the spot and provided
with a vigilant and active secretary. Such a body
can always count on the support of our Council
for any reasonable suggestion they may put before
us.
I need scarcely urge the utility of a Bar
Association
in
the matter of setting up and
maintaining proper scales of charges and proper
ethical standards in professional practice in their
localities.
In the matter of settling, and, better
still, obviating ill will arising out of differences
between brother practitioners, they have a field
of usefulness in which a nation-wide body, such
as we are,
is necessarily much less competent.
I appeal to the solicitors in the many areas, which,
for one reason or another, have not set up an
organisation of this kind, to resolve to do so in
the coming year.
In particular,
the
country
members of the Council could take the lead in
this very timely effort. I have heard within the last
few days with great pleasure that the very important
area consisting of the County of Donegal has just
formed a Solicitors' Bar Association.
Circuit Court Costs
I am glad to report that we have at last secured
the long-sought increase in Circuit Court costs,
brought in by a special Order in advance of the new
Rules, which are now nearly ready for the printer.
They may not be considered adequate by
the
profession, but they represent the result of very
considerable
effort
on
the
part
of
your
representatives.
Solicitors' remuneration
ON the question of solicitors' costs generally the
Orders made by the Labour Court with reference
to minimum wages for our staffs are a cause of
considerable anxiety, coming as they do at a time
when our other expenses have reached a level
which the leisurely and prosperous practitioners
of past generations never in their most pessimistic
moments
contemplated.
Bearing
in mind
the
standard of education and the standard of everyday
conduct expected, and rightly expected, by the
public from a learned profession, entrusted by so
many individuals with the handling of their affairs
and their moneys, it is disquieting that in quarters
where a better understanding of our problems
might be expected, so niggardly a view is taken
of the remuneration due to the members of the
only profession whose charges are fixed for it by
law. Those of us who labour on the Disciplinary
Committee and have the painful task of dealing
with the comparatively few instances of breach
of trust on the part of solicitors, who do d;al
unflinchingly with defaulters, and who are better
placed to judge the difficulties which are responsible
for most of the few failures which do occur, than
are academic critics in secure and comfortable
positions, have the right to call for a reassessment
of the standard of remuneration laid down for the
rendering of skilled and faithful service to the
public by highly qualified men, equipped by long
and arduous
training at their own expense to
render such service. It is high time that we, as a
body and as
individuals, protested against
the
all too prevalent disposition in certain quarters,
where the charges, fixed by themselves, for other
professional men are accepted as a matter of course,
to consider any or every bill of costs rendered by a
solicitor as unreasonable. One obvious remedy
for this would be for solicitors to take more part
than they do in public affairs, for which they are
so eminently fitted by their training, and so acquire
an influence on general opinion which would destroy
this bad tradition, created in other tirrus by certain
novelists, playwrights and music-hall performers.
39