The Gazette 1988

GAZETTE

APRIL 1 988

From the President . . . towards compulsory cover in the near future.

Whilst it is very early days in relation to the Fund and experience to date cannot be taken as a guarantee or an expectation for the future, the claims experience at the end of nine months is that there are 27 claims judged as requiring reserves to be made and the amount reserved is well within the Board's level of expectation. The administrative costs of the Fund have been kept to a minimum as claims are mainly handled t h r ough a panel of Solicitors experienced in this type of work. Members w i th a claim are offered a choice of Solicitor from the panel. It would be the intention of the Board to review the panel from time to time in the light of the number of claims in hand. The Board intends to promote a programme of risk management to assist members in avoiding un- necessary pitfalls. The experience in England and Wales is illustrated by the Table on page 11. For the year commencing 1st May 1988, the Board of the Solicitors' Mutual Defence Fund Limited has decided that the subscription per solicitor should be at the rate of £1,100. A loyalty bonus of £1Q0 per solicitor will be allowed where the firm participated in the Fund in its initial year, 1987/88. When the first year has been c omp l e t ed and t he Ac c o u n ts audited, a full report will be made to members of the Fund which can be discussed at the Annual General Meeting of that company. •

the idea of making as many people in the office fee earners. In t h is day and age, it is becoming increasingly important that someone in the office takes responsibility for the financial side and devotes time to it. Cash flow and turnover of cases are the vital i ng r ed i en ts of a s u c c e s s f ul solicitor's office in the late eighties. This is the theme that our conference in Cork from May 5th —8th will develop. Can you really afford to pass up the opportunity of attending to develop yourself and your office? See you there!

The va l ue of your t i me How much is your time worth? Have you ever s t opped to consider how much you should charge for your work? Have you a satisfactory system to make sure that the casual visitor pays you for your interview? In our profession, we have always accepted that many fees are charged on a scale or per- centage basis. The concept of time costing is something which has not been accepted, except in the larger firms. However, it is becoming i nc r eas i ng ly i mp o r t a nt t h at solicitors make sure that they are getting a fair reward for each case in their offices. The idea of cross- subsidisation in a solicitor's office is now gone and must be replaced by an up-to-date system whereby financial i n f o rma t i on must be i mme d i a t e ly available to t he managing partner. Each depart- ment must pay for itself. A simple way to work out the cost of your time is to work out what gross fees you need to take during the year. You then divide this by 52 (assuming you do not take holidays) to arrive at your weekly figure and by 5 and by 8 to arrive at an hourly figure. So the next time someone wants you to go out to defend a Summons or wants you to leave your desk for a particular task, you will have an immediate check as to whether this is an economic proposition for you or not. You can quite easily expand this principle through your office, w i th

THOMAS D. SHAW President

COMPANIES (No.2) BILL, 1987

Af ternoon Seminar in Blackhall Place, Dublin 7. 10th May 1988 at 2.30p.m.

LAW SOCIETY ANNUAL CONFERENCE 5 - 8 MAY 1988 Spec i al C. I .E. Re t u rn Fare — Dub l i n / Co rk £ 1 5 . 00 (available to Conference Registrants only) Contact: A. GERAGHTY, Law Society. Tel. 710711

organised by Company Law Committee under Joint Chairmanship of Mr. Michael Irvine and Mr. David Tomkin.

CONTACT: AUDREY GERAGHTY, LAW SOCIETY, BLACKHALL PLACE, DUBLIN 7.

Tel. 01-710711 Fax 01-710704

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