The Gazette 1964/67

fessional negligence. Negligence and unnecessary delays will be regarded as incompatible with professional status. Research will figure largely in each year's pro gramme and this will extend not only to legal research for the purposes of law reform, but to 'consumer' needs, so that the educational scheme may meet public requirements, and to 'profes sional earnings' so that a constant watch may be kept to ensure that the profession, is fairly and adequately remunerated. Without suitable rewards it will be impossible to attract into a profession, where the respon sibilities are so heavy, men and women of the calibre essential if a vital public service is to be maintained. There remains a heavy burden to be borne in supplying to the profession itself the services which it will expect and need. The law societies will retain the supporting staff for legal offices and no doubt operate employment agencies to help to fill vacancies for personnel. They will make arrangements for the availability of mechanical aids to efficiency of all kinds including computers for the use of the profession collectively in so far as they may be too expensive to be acquired by individual firms for use in their offices, com puters being used for a wide variety of purposes including law libraries. Then there will be the responsibility for carry ing out an active and well-planned public rela tions programme to ensure that the public are kept fully informed of the legal services available to them, that the profession itself may know what is being done and may know the respects in which they may be any changes in the public demand for them. Finally, at the risk of ensuring that the wiiter does not survive to see the extent to which these forecasts are fulfilled, he suggests that by the year AD 2000 a serious effort will be made to combine the respective laws, practices and pro cedures of England and Scotland so that the best of each will have been incorporated in some uni form system which will have led to the raising of the present iron curtain which prevents the lawyers of one part from practising in the other part of the 'United' Kingdom. (Concluded) SOCIETY OF YOUNG SOLICITORS

The Relationship of Solicitor and Barrister All the same practical and theoretical training and have passed the same vocational examinations. All those who obtain a certificate to practise in criminal law or in civil litigation will be entitled to appear as advocates before all the appropriate courts (or divisions) in the country. The relationship be tween solicitors and barristers will approximate very closely to that at present existing between the general medical practitioner and the consultant or surgeon. Lawyers will decide when they wish to specialise at 'the Bar' and it will be on the basis that, whether acting as consultants or pleaders, they accept instructions only through members of their own profession and, if they elect to return to general practice, as they may freely do, they will not act as a general practitioner for any lay client introduced to them whilst practising at the Bar. The Professional Bodies Membership of the legal profession will carry with it the generally accepted obligation to play a full part in the work of the professional or ganisations. Through various standing committees, the law societies and bar associations will have a major task to fulfill in the discharge of the profession's duty to provide public services and to assist the practising lawyer. In addition to the administration of legal aid and advice schemes, such bodies will be responsible or a planned national programme of law reform through stand ing committees of the profession dealing with particular subjects in which they are expert. All proposed legislation will be submitted in draft to these standing committees before the Bill is laid before Parliament to ensure that the practising lawyers agree—not on policy, but that the pro visions are practicable and will work no accidental injustice, as is the position to-day in Western Germany. The professional bodies will continue to regard it as a public duty to recruit and train the future generation of lawyers and to maintain the stand ard of efficiency of the practising profession and will accordingly accept the responsibility for pro viding educational facilities and the advanced courses of the continuing education programme. Not only will they ensure the integrity and ef ficiency of the profession through their disciplinary procedures and the administration of compensa tion or indemnity funds, but they will administer an insurance scheme to cover liability for pro­ lawyers will have undergone

An Ordinary General Meeting was held on 15th February at Buswells Hotel, Molesworth Street. Mr. M. K. O'Connor delivered an instructive 133