The Gazette 1967/71

electric typewriters, dictating and copying machines and an adequate supply of external and internal tele– phones are as urgent in the Court offices as in any other branch of the public administration. Judges should have adequate secretarial and mechanical assistance. The procedural requirements under the rules of the High Court are also unduly complex and some of them un– necessary. In my view a great saving of public and professional time would be effected if the mechanical procedure of the offices attached to the High Court were modelled on the procedure in the Circuit Court. The complexity of modern statute law, its ever increasing change and amendment and the absence of readily accessible and comprehensive legal textbooks have in– creased the incidence of professional negligence claims. Solicitors are engaged in a risk occupation; a mistake may cost many thousand pounds and it is essential that every practitioner should carry adequate insurance. Pre– miums have been raised steadily over the years and the Society has continuously sought to find means of effecting a group insurance scheme. Unfortunately there are serious practical difficulties and it has not been possible to devise such a scheme. The Council however have considered whether it would be feasible that solicitors taking out professional negli– gence insurance should channel the work through a single broker. While insurance would continue to be effected as at present on individual proposal forms and not as part of a group, a single broker handling such a large volume of insurance might be in a position to get more favourable terms both as to cover and premium. Such a method might eventually become the forerunner of a group scheme. The Council hope to issue a circular to members in the near future. About six years ago the Society submitted proposals to the Circuit Court Rules Committee for a new scale of costs. The proposals led to series of meetings between the Society and the Department. Eventually the Circuit Court Rules Committee about three years ago submitted proposals to the Department which lay there until recently. Now, six years after the original approach and after three years official silence since the Circuit Court Rules Committee submitted thier proposals, we have received notification from the Department that the Minister has given his sanction. Needless to say, financial and economic conditions have changed greatly during that period. The fees collected by the State in connection with Circuit Court proceedings have been raised by more than 100 per cent during the same period. This year marks the twentieth anniversary of the estab– lishment of the International Bar Association of which our Society is a member and in July of next year this Association will hold its general meeting in Dublin. Twenty-one countries located on five continents consti– tute the I.B.A. and we are indeed honoured in having my senior Vice-President, Mr. Patrick Noonan, President of this International Association for the coming year. The Society's April Gazette contains references to the matter. Professional Negligence Insurance Circuit Court Costs International Bar Association

Encroachment by the State on Professional Activities

If the profession is to survive and to play its part as the defenders of the rights of the citizens it must have a sound economic base. If the State by its activities weakens the legal profession it will deprive the citizen of the only protection which he enjoys against the ever increasing power of the executive. There have been many occasions during the past twenty years in which individual citizens would have suffered in the exercise of their constitutional rights had it not been for the existence of a free and independent legal profession in both branches who have been prepared to bring such cases to Court. Such clients are very often persons of small means. There is little financial reward for the profession if the proceedings are unsuccessful. There is no system of civil legal aid which will protect the citizen and afford means of redress in such cases as there is in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The citizen therefore, depends upon the will and the ability of the private practitioner to interest himself in such matters. That will and that ability have never failed in the past. The ever increasing invasion by the State on professional activities raises the question of whether in the future the citizen will have (he same protection as he has had in the past. If we ever reach the position, and it may not be too far distant, when the State, by monopolising legal business reduces the profes– sion to a small number combined in large offices, the private citizen will be at the mercy of the executive and will have lost the protection which he enjoys at present because of the personal relationship with his legal advisor. The socialisation of law would mean an ever increasing dependence of the individual upon the civil service and we must be always on our guard against the derogation of the rule of law and on this subject. There are many things on which I am restrained from discus– sing in order that I may not prejudice approaches which we are now making to the Government. the twenty-fifth anniversary of Mr. Eric Plunkett's appointment as Secretary of the Incor– porated Law Society. Mr. Plunkett was appointed to the post of Secretary to the Society in the presidency of Mr. George Acheson Overend. The appointment was made at the Council meeting of 14th May 1942. His appoint– ment was greeted with approbation at the half-yearly general meeting of the Society held on 15th May 1942 and he took up his duty as Secretary on 1st June of that year. He was educated at Belvedere and Clongowes Wood Colleges and served his apprenticeship with the late Mr. John J. McDonald and was admitted as a solicitor in the Easter sittings 1932. He continued to practice with Mr. McDonald's firm at 116 Grafton Street after qualification. He was a First Class Honours man and Exhibitioner of the National University of Ireland and obtained second place in Legal and Political Science at the B.A. examination held in the autumn of 1930. He obtained first place in the Society's intermediate examination for solicitors' apprentices in 1929 and second place with Silver Medal in the final examination in October 1931. He was Auditor of the Solicitors' Apprentices Debating Society in 1930-31 and was awarded a Gold Medal for impromptu speaking, Silver Medal for legal debate and special certificate for oratory in the session 1929-30. In the course of twenty-five years as chief executive of the Society he has enhanced its reputation and Mr. Eric A. Plunkett This year marks