The Gazette 1955-58

required by the Act to avoid placing any unnecessary burdens on practising solicitors. The Council wish to acknowledge the assistance which has been received from the Bar Associations. The drafting of these regulations is an extremely technical and complicated matter and it is of the utmost importance that the Council should have before them the views of bodies representing solicitors throughout the country so that due regard may be paid to the infinite variety and differences of practice due to local customs and conditions. When the final draft of' the regulations has been approved by the Council it will be their duty to submit them to the Chief Justice for his approval. Of equal importance with the Solicitors' Accounts' Regulations are the Apprenticeship and Education Regulations which are still under the Council's consideration. Under section 40 of the Act the entire control and regulation of the system of education is vested in the Society acting through the Council and in their view the education and equipment for practice of future generations of solicitors is one of the most responsible duties imposed upon the Society. I do not wish to anticipate the report of the Court of Examiners which will in due course be considered by the Council but I would like to refer to the information which has from time to time been published in the annual report of the Council on this matter. You will recollect that in these statements references have been made to the desir– ability of providing lecture courses on a number of practical subjects which have hitherto been outside the Society's educational curriculum although part of the course of study for the final examination. I refer particularly to lectures on company law, tax– ation, with special reference to death duties, con– veyancing and Land Registry practice, and similar branches of what I might term " applied law" with which every solicitor must be familiar in daily practice. In the view of the Court of Examiners the lectures and courses of tuition have in the past laid too much stress on what I refer to as theory subjects and it has been suggested that these should be entrusted to the Universities to enable the Society to concentrate on practice. There are difficulties and the subject is a complicated one. It is unlikely that any change which may result from the Court of Examiners recommendations will take effect for a year or two, buf after all we are legislating for the future and it is better to take time for consideration even at the cost of some delay than to enter upon hasty or ill advised courses. Section 40 of the Act gives important relief to solicitors' apprentices in the matter of the second Irish examination, which, under the Legal Practiti– oners Act, 1929, could not be taken earlier than one year before the expiration of the term of in-

connection with the working of the Disciplinary Committee to the effect that the Disciplinary Com– mittee should not have any knowledge of an application until the application actually came before the Committee for oral hearing, and it was sug– gested that section 13 of the Bill should be amended to provide that the members of the disciplinary Committee who read the affidavit of the applicant should not sit on the taking of the oral evidence. This matter was discussed with the Department, and after careful consideration it was felt that the suggestion made by Captain Cowan would be met by Section 73 of the Act, which provides for the setting up of Committees of the Council, and under this Section a special Committee has been set up to deal with and investigate complaints, other than direct applications to the Disciplinary Committee and it is provided that no member of the Disciplin– ary Committee shall sit on this special Committee. In this way no Member of the Disciplinary Com– mittee will have prior knowledge of any complaint until it actually comes before the Disciplinary Committee, in the first instance on the Affidavit of the complainant and subsequently, if the Committee think fit, on the hearing on oral evidence. The Council was also approached by a deputation from the Dublin Solicitors' Bar Association with reference to certain amendments. It was suggested that the words "Civil Service Solicitor" in section 3 should be amended to " Solicitor in the full time service of the State" and this amendment was agreed. It was also suggested that the penalties in the case of a Body Corporate implying that it was qualified to act as a Solicitor should be the same as in the case of an individual but this amendment was not agreed to. This Association also suggested that a special list would be kept of solicitors who were exempt from taking out Practising Certificates, and this will be done. The Council have since January last been engaged in the work of drafting regulations to be made by the Society under various sections of the Act. Draft Solicitors' Accounts' Regulations have already been prepared and circulated to Bar Associations for their observations and the replies which have been received from the Bar Associations have been carefully qonsidered by a Committee of the Council to whom the matter was referred. The Committee has been fully occupied with this exacting task for some time but has now completed a draft which will shortly be submitted to the Council. The draft regulations submitted by the Committee embody most of the important amendments to the first draft suggested by the Provincial Bar Associations. The object of the Committee has been to simplify the regulations as much as possible and while fully protecting the interests of the client in the manner