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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.

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