The Gazette 1967/71

time- basis or on a consultative' basis. This if adopted by the Council will take some little time to put into operation but it is hoped that it will be adopted and that it would be in operation before the commence ment of the new year. There are two problems arasing : one is the recruitment of suitable staff and the provision of office space; the other is the financing of the operation. The committee estimate an additional revenue of £8,000 to £10,000 would be required. If satisfied that the pro fession is quite willing to pay for a service so useful as this should be and that the additional finance should be found by way of an increase in the subscription to the Society which has not been altered since the Society was founded. Our subscription of course is very much out of date. In England the fee is thirteen guineas; Scotland £14-10-0; Northern Ireland six guineas; Germany £9 to £27; Netherlands twelve guineas; Norway £10 to £23, and Sweden £12 to £48. It is probable if the finance is to be obtained from an increase in subscrip tions that an increase of £10 would be suggested. I hope at the next half yearly meeting to be able to put more concrete proposals in this regard before you. It is also hoped that when the Accountants Certificate provi sions are working properly that it will in the near future be possible to reduce the Compensation Fund Contribu tion still further, it has already been reduced from £40 to £30. REGIONAL MEETINGS While the information service will supply a flow of information out from the Society to the profession there is inadequate communication from the members of the profession of the Society. This is not satisfactorily sup plied by the members of the Council, there are very large parts of Ireland, particularly in the West and South, which send no member to the Council at all. This, in my view, is a great defect in our organisation and one which needs to be remedied. I have myself during the past six months visited most of the Bar Associations in Ireland with the hope that I might dis cover some method of filling this hiatus and while I am satisfied that this type ol operation fulfills the immediate purpose for which it was intended it is not a suitable permanent arrangement. I would suggest as a permanent arrangement that regional meetings would be held in various parts of the country in each year to which the President and some other members of the Council and the Secretary and his senior assistants would attend. A broad agenda should be prepared but the meeting should be allowed to range over every subject without restric tion. It should be possible to arrange the country into six regions at most which would mean six meetings a year. This would not place undue strain on anybody and it would give the Council on the one hand an oppor tunity to explain its current policies directly to the members of the profession and the members of the pro fession, on the other hand, to express their views, criti cisms and particular problems to the Council. OFFICE ORGANISATION AND EQUIPMENT It is felt that solicitors are at a disadvantage in many cases through a failure to provide themselves with a well- organised office, properly equipped with modern aids and techniques, thereby resulting in loss of efficiency, economic advantage and excessive use of their own pro fessional time. In many cases, particularly in small firms they have not the time to stand back, as it were, and study this matter. Besides for the most part they are not by their training particularly well qualified to deal with report

this type of thing nor are they well informed about the relative suitability of their particular office of any indivi dual item of equipment from the wide range of these things now on the market. It would therefore be a great advantage if a firm with such problems were able to call on expert advice in these matters. The Council, therefore, will have to investigate the possibility of establishing a specialised service of this nature which would be available to its members. This idea can be regarded only as tentative because the service would have to be self financing and having regard to the narrowness of the market it might not justify the expense of its establishment. The proposal will, however, be most carefully investigated. PROFESSIONAL NEGLIGENCE INSURANCE For some years past the Council has been concerned with the difficulties solicitors are experiencing in obtain ing professional negligence insurance at reasonable pre miums or indeed at all. You will recall that a survey was done some years ago by way of questionnaire as a pre liminary to a group insurance scheme. Unfortunately up to the present time all efforts to get quotations have failed but in the last few months there has been some glimmer of light in a suggestion that a quotation might possibly be forthcoming if the group included every member of the profession. The Society has, of course, no statutory means of enforcing a solicitor to become a member of a group insurance scheme and indeed it is quite possible that many members would not want to join such a scheme for one reason or another. The only way of enforcing a subscription to the scheme would be to make it conditional on membership of the Society to be also in the group scheme. This, however, would have the effect of forcing a person who wanted to continue to be a member of the Society and yet did not want to enter the group scheme to leave the Society and that to my mind would be very undesirable. The Council are thus pursuing with their brokers certain other proposals but it must be realised that the matter is a very difficult one and I think there is no certainty that concrete pro posals will be available. Members should continue to keep whatever cover they have until the Society has a group scheme actually in existence if that in fact ever does occur. A group scheme would have one side advan tage in that the Society would then have access to the statistics showing geographical location of the claims and the more frequent types of mistakes which led to them and possibly be able to take some remedial measures by way of an information service. LAND REGISTRY CONVEYANCE This subject has been a cuase of great concern and anxiety to the Council and indeed to the whole profes sion for almost twelve months now. Numerous discus sions have taken place including some at the highest possible level. I had an opportunity to meet the Minister for Justice very shortly after he took office and discuss with him certain general problems affecting the profes sion including this matter in particular. At that time the Minister had not had an opportunity of examining in detail the many matters awaiting his attention. He did say that he considered the Land Registry a very impor tant part of our legal machinery both from the point of view of the public and legal profession. He intends, therefore, to pay an early visit to the Registry to discuss the whole machinery with the Registrar and his executives and will take the opportunity of this visit to the Regis trar to discuss in detail the implications of a recent circular issued by him, a copy of which I gave the