The Gazette 1972

of the law within the reach of every individual, or is the righting of wrongs still the privilege of the man of

lawyer—again subject to proper control—was passed by 24 votes to 14, and the right of the foreign lawyer to engage in contentious business and even to appear in Court—but only if the rules of the local Law Society so permitted—was passed by 34 votes to 3. But the conference was most insistent that bearing the public interest in mind, a foreign lawyer must be qualified to give the services he offers and conforms to the generally accepted standards of legal ethics and professional conduct operating in that other country. These and other recommendations of the U.I.A. will be circulated by the International Bar Association to all Law Societies, and by us to our own Bar Associations. It would be a useful service for all of us to take a good hard look at these proposals and to examine them not in any self-interested way, but from the point of view of the public whose interest we are here to serve. Indeed, looking at these proposals from a purely selfish point of view, it occurs to me that it might be wiser for us to liberalise our existing rules and regulations while we still have time and before foreign lawyers establish them- selves here under the protective facade of an office ostensibly run by one of our own members. Duty of Lawyers to the Law Speaking on the Duty of the Lawyer to the Law, Lord Goodman recently referred to the extraordinary picture we lawyers have of ourselves—as men of some learning, of tremendous integrity, of above-average intelligence rather like the Pharisees in the Gospels—and he con- trasted this with the very unfavourable picture the public appears to have of us, most of it, in his opinion, largely due to our own fault. Are people slow to bring their troubles to us? Do they bring them just that little bit too late because of the fear we may unwittingly inspire in them ? Do we talk down to our clients making them feel just that little bit inferior to the elite that they now have the honour to consult, or do we treat them as friends whose troubles we are glad to share? Do we talk to them in language they can understand or do we try to impress them with our knowledge that may be real or only imaginary? If the Rule of Law under which our Society operates is worthy of our allegiance and support; if no blue-print for an alternative system has so far been placed before us, and if we feel that the legal systems operating.elsewhere is not to our liking, then it is up to us to ensure that what we treasure shall be brought up to date in every respect so as to meet the demands of our Community and that we who operate that system earn the Community's respect. Keeping pace with modern conditions A lawyer dying in the year 1872 and miraculously restored to life in 1972 could, without undue strain on his revived constitution, sit at the same desk as he sat at 100 years aga and cary on his legal practice more or less where he left off. Telephone, type-writer, dicta- phones and other impedimenta of the twentieth century might cause him a certain amount of confus : on for a time, but on the whole, he would experience little diffi- culty in recognizing the same pattern of conveyancing, probate and Court practice that he was used to carrying out a century ago. We are as essential to our clients io-day as he was in his day, but one is entitled to ask: Have we kept pace with the 20th century, or are we a dherng to a mode of administering the law more suit- able to a more leisurely age? What have we done in our time to speed-up the administration of justice or get rid of anachronistic formulae? Are we bringing the process

property ? Legal Aid

In this respect it is depressing to find the Minister for Justice saying in Dail Hireann recently that while free Civil Legal Aid is a worthy Social Service Scheme, there is little hope for its establishment in this country until the demands of more worthy welfare schemes have first been met out of the limited resources at the disposal of the Government. Ready access to legal advice is the right of every citizen if the Com munity's respect for the law is to be maintained. Tradi- tionally, lawyers in this country have rarely failed to give of their services free to those who could not afford to take the necessary steps to have their wrongs put right, and the Free Legal Aid Centres established some years ago in Dublin and run by our senior students is a happy extension of that tradition. I was very glad to see a tribute paid to them recently by the Minister for Justice, but I am completely at a loss to understand what the Minister implied when he expressed the hope that the Incorporated Law Society would help in a more active and more official way than by just having a few individual solicitors helping out. These young students of ours in the period between April 1969 and July 1971 dealt with over 1,000 cases in the five centres they have established in Dublin, and when problems arose that necessitated expert legal advice—or where Court pro- ceeding wree necessary—they were immediately able to call upon the services of those members of our Society who are on the panel to give them this expert advice or institute and carry-out the necessary Court proceedings entirely free of charge. In commending them for this work, the Minister went on to say that the Incorpor- ated Law Society should officially give its blessing to this Organisation, and try to arrange—with our younger qualified members at least—that this type of service would be available throughout the whole country. Let there be no misunderstanding about the Society's attitude to this important matter. These young students and those members of our Society who so willlingly give their services free of charge to the poorer sections of the Community have been praised and thanked by my predecessors in office over the years for this exercise of theirs in the practice of Christian charity, and I most happily join with my predecessors in again thanking them for attempting to carry on, under severe handi- caps, a service which is primarily the duty of the State to provide. A free civil legal aid service carried out on a Nation-wide basis and staffed by our newly-qualified Solicitors and our senior students is a first-class idea, but where is the vast amount of money that is needed for such a scheme to come from? The Minister has placed one room at the disposal of the existing organi- zation in this very building, but cannot promise even an annual subvention for it until it is extended through- out the country. I trust that the Law Society is not being asked, through the generosity of its members and senior students, to provide a Nation-wide service for the State free of charge? In the latter half of this century there has been an extraordinary awaken : ng of the social conscience of our people and what was heretofore given as a sop to the poor, has come to be regarded as one of their inherent rights. As lawyers, we should be quick to read the signs and urge for the implementation of what we regard as the just and proper demands of the Society we live in. Who can now deny that the poorer sections of our growing urban communities need free 163