The Gazette 1946-49

over 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 the work traditionally

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. 39

branch of the legal profession. Before proceeding further,

to

like

I would

to our

the compliment paid

place on record

profession, 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. through the President, by