The Gazette 1995

MAY/JUNE 1995

GAZETTE

and other public bodies in England and Wales. As well as advising personally on legal issues, the holder of the Office heads a Department of about, 540 staff who also give legal advice to a number of major departments, and provide civil litigation services. The Head of the Government Legal Service has oversight for about 1,100 lawyers in over 30 departments and agencies. The person appointed becomes Queen's Proctor, acting for the Crown in matrimonial and legitimatisation cases and will be appointed Procurator General. Solicitors and barristers, with a background in public law are eligible to apply for the above post. The ! solicitor or barrister appointed will be j accountable to Parliament for the ! department's expenditure currently | about £50 million. Many Irish solicitors have been admitted as | solicitors in England and Wales and i are thus eligible. j Vacancies for Parliamentary Counsel in England and Wales were also "Drafting Bills calls for an analytical mind, imagination, mental toughness, physical endurance, powers of persuasion and (a quality which may be acquired by practice) the ability to express oneself on paper. . . [The] pressure is sometimes intense, and the hours of work are not always predictable. The intrinsic interest of the work and the difficulties of i the problems to be solved make the work stimulating and, when the pressure is great, arduous". Solicitors and barristers were eligible. The successful solicitor or barrister would have a good honour's degree (which need not be in law) "or show evidence of comparable intellectual ability". Solicitors are eligible for appointment to the High Court in England and Wales. At the end of May 1995, an advertisement for the | | | advertised recently. The job description was exceedingly challenging:

position of Senior Draftsman in the Office of the Attorney General appeared in the National Press. Solicitors and barristers were eligible for appointment. This was an historic moment. The Attorney Genera must be complimented. Solicitors and barristers must work together in harmony with the ultimate vision of making the world (and Ireland in particular) a better place in which Law is about creating, finding and using information. One might automatically assume that the new information technologies are ideally j suited to law. Yet in mainland Europe, on-line law research has not been successful: it is perceived as both difficult to use and expensive. CD- ROM is more popular, but still limited j in scope. No one should be too critical I of the Office of the Attorney General for its perceived lack of information technology facilities. However, if all of the recommendations of the Review Conference on Preservation of Timber in Bui ldings at TCD The first international scientific conference covering the new strategies for the preservation of j timber, environmental laws and health I effects in buildings will be held at | Trinity College Dublin on 21 & 22 j September 1995. The Conference will address the issues of green timber preservation, mycology, entomology, building construction and maintenance, health hazards and environmental policies. The delegate registration fee is £250. For further information contact the Conference Directors: Dr. Jagjit Singh or Elizabeth McCausland Tel: 0044 181 784 5717, Fax: 0044 181 784 5700. | I j to live. j Conclusion Group are implemented fully, the Attorney General's Office should become a model legal office. i •

In the Advisory Section of the Office, I great potential was stated to exist for I the use of computer systems in ! • accessing precedents and advices ' generated within the office; • implementing case tracking, updating and reporting system; • accessing legal databases (such as LEXIS, ITELIS, CELEX and others); and • automating the registry system.

I A qualified legal librarian was ^ recommended together with

information technology training for professional and secretarial staff. Continuing legal education was recommended as well as a structured system of appraisal for all staff.

Recruitment To Office

For some inexplicable reason, the question of recruitment of professional persons to the Office of the Attorney General has been a vexed and controversial issue. See for ! example, the Editorial in the Gazette of the Society, July 1994. The Review Group recommended that i "consideration be given to extending eligibility" for the relevant ' competition to solicitors as well as barristers. The Report noted that this had been the approach adopted for some time past by the United i Kingdom Parliamentary Counsel's Office and had "proved very satisfactory there". England and Wales with the salary of circa £95,000.00 (not only subject to review, but more money may be available for an exceptional candidate) | was publicly advertised in May 1995. i The present holder, Sir Gerald Hosker, KCB, QC, with the title of Treasury Solicitor retires in October 1995. Reporting directly to the Attorney General, the Head of the Government Legal Services is | responsible for the provision of legal services to Government Departments 150 In this context, the Head of the Government Legal Services of