The Gazette 1972

EDITORIAL Community Legislation Now that five-sixths of the voting electorate in the Irish Republic have sanctioned the constitutional amendment which enables Community legislation to supersede the Constitution in any case where it is necessary to vive effect to the Treaties of Rome and Paris, it becomes more necessary than ever for Irish legal practitioners to gain some knowledge, not merely of the Treaties, but of the more important directives and regulations affect- ing changes in Irish law. This will he a formidable task, Legal education — by MICHAEL ZANDER

and it would seem that some lawyers in the larger towns will henceforth have to specialise in Community Law as it is a very intricate subject in itself which seemingly can only be combined with ordinary prac- tice in large firms. It is hoped to bring to the notice of practitioners the important decisions of the European Court and the effect of the more important directives and regulations which may affect them. a legal tangle Society has not yet fixed the fees for its vocational course due to be started on a pilot basis for 240 students in 1974. But considering that it would have 40 weeks' teaching, as compared with 21 for the Bar course, the cost would not be less than £500 per student. If public moneys are not available, any difference between fees and the true cost will have to be made up through a levy on the profession. The Ormrod Committee based its calculations and projections on about 1,120 solicitors and 170 barristers entering practice each year. These figures are already clearly under-estimates. Projections of members should now be part of the function of the advisory committee set up in January by the Lord Chancellor as suggested in the Ormrod Re- port. The committee's functions are to advise the pro- fession and the relevant institutions of higher education on all matters affecting education and training of en- trants to the legal profession. The Ormrod Report said that the committee should have a part-time secretariat and should collect and disseminate much needed statis- tics relating to legal education. It thought the Secretariat should be supplied by the Lord Chancellor's Department and that the expenses of the committee should be shared between the profes- sional bodies and Government sources in the shape of Lord Chancellor's Department and the DES. , This hope has not however, been realised. The Lord Chancellor's Department and the DES both take the view that, the task of the committee being to advise the profession and not a Minister, it is for the profession to provide it with the means to do its work. Not wishing for work without power or responsibility, the Lord Chancellor's Department has declined even to provide a Secretariat which has been made the task of the La^ Society instead. The committee has so far met three times and hope s before the summer to issue its first report on the recog- nition by the profession of first degree courses. In r e - ticular, it will have to decide whether to make any protest at the intention of both sides of the profession to proceed with their own separate courses rather than to implement the Ormrod Committee's concept. The Guardian (18th April. 1972) 130

A year after publication of the Ormrod Report on legal education there are already signs that the committee's most controversial proposal, that the universities and polytechnics should handle not only the academic but also the vocational stage of institutional training, will be abandoned as unrealistic. And it is still uncertain what practical effect its overall recommendations are likely to have. The committee thought that both sides of the legal profession would be forced by shortage of funds to ask that the proposed one-year vocational training course be financed out of public money. The report envisaged that the Bar's Council of Legal Education and the Law Society's College of Law would somehow be merged into universities and polytechnics. It thought that at least four such centres in different parts of the country would be needed to cope with the numbers coming into the profession. The solicitor members of the committee dissented from this major conclusion and, since the publication of the Report, the Bar too has made it clear that it wants, if possible, to continue to run its own show. The main sticking point is the magic concept of "con- trol." Neither side of the profession is prepared to con- cede to anyone. The Department of Education and Science has made it clear, however, that no public funds are likely to be forthcoming by way of direct grant to the professional schools and the only practical alternatives are therefore either self-financing by the profession or a genuine transfer of the courses to universities or polytechnics. If the profession felt itself obliged to ask for such a transfer, it would, for mainly snobbish reasons, prefer that the courses be provided by the universities. Both the University Grants Committee and the DES would prefer that this development in legal education should be put into the polytechnics. Since receipts from students will undoubtedly be a major element in the financing of the courses, the pro- fession will fix fees at the highest possible figure with- out pricing itself out of the market. Students attending the Bar's vocational training course now pay £221, which is near the true cost. The Law