272 / 338
It cannot be altered by the profession to meet the
changing needs of the public. The Law Society
should have greater control over the system of
education and apprenticeship of its students and
should be entitled to prescribe the appropriate
requirements subject to the approval of, say, the
Chief Justice or of the President of the High Court.
Law, being a profession, is not merely a source
of livelihood. It carries with it a social responsibility,
a duty to use the knowledge and training with which
the lawyer is equipped to further the public good.
As a member of a profession practising a learned
art, a solicitor should have, not only a general
culture, but a culture in his own avocation, which
today calls for a learning beyond the practical
technicalities of the system he is to practise. Our
existing system of legal education does not instruct
our students in the humanities and the social sciences,
nor does it train them in the arts of investigation,
reasoning and expression.
Some of the social
sciences, like economics and political science, deal
with particular phases of human relationships. Law
deals with all of them. Law, specially in recent
years, has become vitally related to the social
sciences.
Statutes to regulate social services, to
alleviate unemployment, to provide decent housing
for the lower income groups—all deal with sociol
ogical problems. Taxes and tariffs, wage and price
controls, profoundly affect our national economy.
Law is, therefore, a growing and not a static thing.
The education to meet that development must also
be a growing and not a static thing limited by
statute. The old easement of light and air for the
parlour window may gradually become an easement
for unobstructed passage between one's television
aerial and the transmitting tower.
In view of the
increasing complexities of our society, a
legal
training which confines itself to teaching such
technicalities as the rule in Shelley's case, what
constitutes offer and acceptance in the formation of
a contract and the legal requisites of a valid will has
abdicated its vital function, which is to equip its
students properly for the important role they must
play in the interests of their future clients. A proper
legal
training should give
the students some
knowledge and understanding of the interaction of
all phases of human activity.
It should impart to
them an acute awareness of the continuous flow of
the stream of history by showing how in the past the
law has grown and expanded to meet new conditions
and new needs, and how in the future it should
develop in order to continue in this evolutionary
process. A sound legal education should make and
maintain a balance between training learned men as
well as men learned in their art on the one hand ;
and, on the other hand, men who are equal to the
practical task of wise and effective advice to clients
and of aiding the courts in the administration of
justice.
An adequate background of general legal theory
cannot be provided in the relatively short time
devoted to lectures at present, especially when
instruction is at odd times taken off from practical
work in an office. The minimum period needed for
such a background is four years uninterrupted,
intensive study of legal theory. After that, when the
theory has been mastered and examinations passed
in the theory, there should be a practical apprentice
ship of whole-time employment for two to three
years in a solicitor's office. Then, all entrants should
be required to pass a professional qualifying examina
tion in the running of a solicitor's office.
In my address to you last May I referred to the
fact that much of our legislation is antiquated and
out of harmony with the present day requirements,
and that many of our statutory orders which provide
for the practical application of our law and for
methods and procedure are just as outmoded, and
are an incubus militating against the efficient and
expeditious discharge of public work. A memo
randum suggesting improvements in this outmoded
and archiac procedure has been submitted by my
Council to the Department of Justice. The Council
noted with pleasure that the Minister for Justice, in
answer to a Parliamentary question last June, stated
that the task of Law Reform had been specifically
assigned to the Parliamentary Secretary who had
been recently appointed. Furthermore, in the Dail
Debates on the z6th October last on the Second
Reading of the Solicitors' (Amendment) Bill, the
Parliamentary Secretary promised that his depart
ment will do all they reasonably can to help the
Society's efforts in the elimination of outmoded
procedures which involve a waste of time, energy
and money on the part of our profession and of the
public.
Law Reform is not a subject which commands
popular appeal and the Government are to be
congratulated on having the initiative to tackle it.
If our outmoded laws were permitted to continue,
such grave hardships would be caused to progres
sively increasing section of the community that there
might be disastrous results.
Law Reform is a
difficult and onerous responsibility. It will involve
deep research, and detailed study of Comparative
Law, if it is not to be in the nature of a read-made
suit which is made to fit anyone but properly fits no
one. The current feeling in my profession is one of
complete good will
towards
the Parliamentary
Secretary, who has the courage to tackle it, combined
with certain doubts as to whether he will have
adequate staff to help him.
In England there is a