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THE INCORPORATED LAW SOCIETY OF IRELAND
GAZETTE
MAY/JUNE 1977
VOL. 71 NO. 4
Incorporated Law Society's Ordinary General
Meeting, Wexford, 7th May, 1977
The President, Mr. Bruce St. John Blake, took the chair
on the occasion of the half-yearly meeting which was held
in White's Hotel, Wexford, on Saturday, 7th May, 1977,
at 10.00 a.m.
The Notice convening the meeting was read by the
Director General, Mr. J. Ivers. The Minutes of the
Annual General Meeting held on 25th November, 1976,
having been circulated in advance, were taken as read and
signed by the President.
Mr. Fintan O'Connor, President, Wexford Bar
Association, welcomed the President, the members of the
Council, Official Guests and members of the Society and
wished them an enjoyable time in Wexford and a
successful meeting.
The appointment of the following as Scrutineers of the
Ballot of the Council to be held on 17th November, 1977
was proposed by Mr. J. Dundon, seconded, and passed
unanimously.
Scrutineers: R. J. Branigan, E. McCarron, A. J.
McDonald, B. P. McCormack, R. J. Tierney.
The President, Mr. Bruce St. J. Blake, then delivered
his Presidential address.
President's Address
Ladies and Gentlemen, Fellow Members and Colleagues,
my first duty is to welcome you all here and in particular
to welcome our very distinguished guests from overseas,
the Presidents and Secretaries of the Law Society,
London, and the Law Society of Northern Ireland. In
addressing you this morning, on the occasion of the
Society's half yearly General Meeting, I propose to deal
with events which have occurred since I was elected
President last December and then comment on the
developments which are likely to occur or, through action
by the Society, might be caused to occur in the period
ahead.
The major event from the point of view of the
Solicitors' Profession was the publication by the National
Prices Commission of its Occasional Paper No. 22
containing the report of the Commission's Consultant,
Profession Denis Lees of the University of Nottingham,
on Solicitors' Remuneration in Ireland and the
Conclusions and Recommendations of the Commission
thereon. In June, 1975 the Society indicated to the Prices
Commission that it would welcome a study of Solicitors'
Remu n e r a t i on and on the a p p o i n tme nt by the
Commission of its Consultant the Society arranged to co-
operate fully in the very considerable task which he
undertook in his terms of reference. At that time the
remuneration of solicitors was under considerable
criticism in the media, notwithstanding the Society's
c omme nt t h at r emu n e r a t i on was not only not
unreasonable, but in many instances in fact inadequate.
This criticism appeared to be based on a lack of
understanding of the functions of, and the services
provided by, a solicitor and of the cost of providing that
service, which was understandable, in the absence of any
independent reliable source of information as to the true
position. Hence, the announcement of the Independent
Inquiry was welcomed by the Profession.
The Council of the Society has certain reservations on
some of the details of the Consultant's Report and on
some of his recommendations, but it nevertheless takes
the view, that, by and large, the Report is both fair and
reasonable and has reflected the thoroughness with which
the Commission's Consultant and his colleagues pursued
their investigations, not just in Dublin, but throughout the
country where I would like to emphasise they were
facilitated in every possible way by the profession, both at
Council, Bar Association and individual level. It must be
said that the Council of the Society on behalf of the
Profession is gravely disappointed with the approach of
the National Prices Commission in its conclusions and
recommendations which the Society considers to be
unreasonable, unrealistic and unfair. The National Prices
Commission has in effect disowned many of the
reasonable recommendations of its own Consultant and
has chosen to disregard many of the reasonable proposals
made by the Society which were accepted by the
Consultant and recommended to the Commission in his
Report. In its very thorough and detailed approach to the
Inquiry the Society endeavoured to improve the situation
of those solicitors practising in the country areas and, in
particular, in the undeveloped and consequently much
less affluent areas and also to improve the terms of
practice in the lower Courts jurisdictions in the hope that
solicitors would be encouraged to work, especially in the
District Court, which, at the moment, is completely