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GAZETTE
MARCH 1986
First Young Solicitors' International Conference
— Windermere
by
Ken Murphy*
Solicitor
Last August the Society of Young Solicitors placed a
notice in the Law Society's Newsletter inviting appli-
cations from those who wished to attend the first ever
Joint Conference for the young solicitors of Ireland,
Scotland, England and Wales to be held on the first
weekend in October (4th - 6th October, 1985) in
Bowness-on-Windermere in the English Lake District.
We awaited the response to this with some trepidation.
When examining the feasibility of this with our counter-
parts on the Committees of the Scottish Young Lawyers
Association and the Young Solicitors Group of England
and Wales we had been forced to 'guarantee' that at
• least 40 of our members would be prepared to cross the
Irish Sea for this conference. Pessimists on the Com-
mittee had subsequently questioned whether such a
number of volunteers could be found. A contingency
plan had been devised to meet the expected shortfall by
'press-ganging' former committee members to the aid of
the Society in its hour of need.
We need not have worried. To our delight more than
200 requests for booking forms were received!
As a result of this remarkable interest we obtained an
increase in our apportionment of places to 54. Even
when these had all been allocated on a strictly first come
first served basis there were still, of course, a great many
disappointed people to whom we had to return their
booking forms and cheques for the all-in price of IR£87.50.
Apart from the 54 in the 'official party' a dozen or
more people made their own arrangements for transport
and accommodation in order to attend the conference.
Indeed perhaps the best example of the enthusiasm which
this weekend generated is of one Dublin solicitor who
arrived at the B & I Line departure point at the North
Wall some 15 minutes before sailing time purely in order
to 'drop o f f ' a colleague and wave us goodbye. On dis-
covering, however, that there had been a last minute
cancellation she parked her car and with a display of
impulsiveness so sadly lacking in our profession, with
the houselights on at home and the sum of exactly IR£1
in her pocket, she stepped aboard. As things turned out
she appeared to enjoy the weekend more than almost
anyone else. Her secretary's reaction when she received
a telephone call from Liverpool the following morning
is not recorded.
We crossed to Liverpool on the Thursday night and
on the Friday morning we travelled by coach to Bowness-
on-Windermere. As we had some time in hand we arranged
with the coach driver to travel by a less direct but more
scenic route in order to give us an opportunity to observe
some of the picturesque villages and famous natural
beauty of Southern Cumbria. In spite of the unfavour-
able weather this seemed to be appreciated by everyone
on the bus except for the possessor of a large hangover
who was heard to enquire from the back of the bus
whether a second whiparound for the driver might
persuade him to bring us directly to the hotel.
The format for the conference was for three separate
'discussions' to take place. Each of the three jurisdictions
provided a single guest speaker who led one session on a
topic of his own choice and then played a minor role in
the other two discussions merely outlining where rele-
vant the differences of law or practice in his own country.
The Irish guest speaker was Michael V. O'Mahony,
Solicitor, who delivered a paper on the principles under-
lying assessment of damages in personal injuries actions
in Ireland. Concentrating primarily on the recent judg-
ments in
Reddy
-v-
Bates, Cooke
-v-
Walsh
and
Synnott
-v-
Quinnsworth
he stimulated a most interesting and
broad-ranging discussion on his chosen topic.
On the following day Mr. Donald Rennie, Solicitor,
from Edinburgh spoke on residential property convey-
ancing in Scotland and Mr. John Appleby, Solicitor,
from Birmingham gave a most amusing and enlighten-
ing insight into the law on divorce and separation in
England.
To conclude the conference on Sunday morning our
special guest speaker Lord Grimond of Firth (former
leader of the Liberal Party, and a Barrister) gave a talk
on " t he failure of the l aw" which largely consisted of
both a plea for and prediction of the ultimate fusion of
the solicitors' and barristers' branches of the profession.
Stimulating and worthwhile as the lectures were the
true test for success in the conference such as this is the
extent to which the different sets of delegates mingle
together. In order to encourage this we had arranged
that at the black tie banquet on the Saturday night each
delegate would be obliged to sit with people from other
jurisdictions on either side. To our delight, however,
this forced integration was quite unnecessary as through-
out the whole weekend solicitors from every country
mingled freely and enthusiastically together to the
benefit and enjoyment of all.
Although the weather over the four days was rather
mixed we were lucky in that the Saturday afternoon was
warm and clear and allowed the delegates, whether by
taking boat trips, cycling or walking, to enjoy some of
the breath-taking scenery of the Lake District immortal-
ised in the poetry of William Wordsworth. Indeed one
of the most popular excursions was north to Lake
Grassmere to see Dove Cottage and Wordsworth's
grave in the grounds of St. Oswald's Church.
By a happy coincidence the Irish party was composed
exactly half and half of males and females and of solici-
tors practising in the Dublin area on the one hand and in
the rest of the country on the other.
Modesty should not be allowed to obscure the fact
that a disproportionate responsibility for the success of
the entire weekend is due to the Irish contingent which
not only outstripped all of the others numerically and in
terms of contribution at the legal discussions but also
brought an enormous vitality and gaiety to the whole
weekend.
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