The Gazette 1984

GAZETTE

SEPTEMBER 1984

Combining Business With Pleasure: The Objective of Many, The Achievement of Few

by David Andrews*

This article seeks to explain why The International Bar Association has relevance to every practising lawyer.

A LTHOUGH many Irish practitioners in their day to day work deal as a matter of course with Lawyers in the U.K., U.S.A., Australia, Canada or New Zealand, I suspect that they would be surprised to find themselves described as "International Lawyers". That term probably connotes to them some high powered jet-setting individual whose firm has offices scattered throughout the world. Yet the average Irish solicitor perhaps practising in the West of Ireland and struggling to administer a modest estate with next of kin in Coventry, Chicago and Canberra is just as much an International Lawyer as his more glamorous colleague. The International Bar Association embodies the means of providing every practising lawyer in the world with widened horizons, down to earth assistance with the problems and hurly burly of everyday practice and the stimulation of discussing legal and professional matters with colleagues from enormously varied backgrounds, and working environments. Perhaps most important of all, it provides the opportunity for enhancing the scope of one's practice as well as increasing personal fulfilment and experience which flows naturally from encountering and forging links with professional colleagues from other pars of the world, and even sometimes from one's own part of the world! In to-day's fast moving and complex society no lawyer should content himself with, or expect to provide an adequate service to his or her clients by ignoring the wider world around us. Clients are travelling more for both business and pleasure and broadening their horizons and personal dealings. Business and Industry, whether national or international can no longer escape the impact of international laws and regulations, and it follows that the competent professional adviser must be prepared to respond in an enlightened manner to these changing circumstances. As a profession we should realise that we are lucky to have the International Bar Association to serve us, and to help us to serve others better. Too many of us too lightly deprive ourselves of the advantages it has to offer simply because we do not take the trouble to stop to think and to find out. What is the International Bar Association? (IBA) The IBA originated in 1947 as an association of bar associations and law societies with ( inter alia) the objects as set out below. The idea of individual lawyer member- ship came at a later date and the first individual members were, perhaps not surprisingly, comprised for the most part of lawyers whose field of practice was predominantly concerned with international business law and whose clients tended to include a predominance of corporations,

rather than individual members of the community and their families. The "Section on Business Law" ("SBL") was consequently the first section to be formed (in 1970) for individual members and its activities covered an ever- increasing number of aspects of specialised, international, business law topics. It was, nevertheless, realised increasingly that there was a large body of the legal professions throughout the world which, whilst concerning itself with traditional fields of practice, served the needs of private individuals across the whole spectrum of law governing the ordered conduct of society generally — that body of lawyers truly carrying on the general practice of the law. They not only originated from the traditional, historical attorney, dating back to the beginning of the civilised community, but they have also always represented, and still do represent, the largest section of the legal professions throughout the world. The concept of a lawyer "specialising" more or less exclusively in business matters is a relatively recent phenomenon. Consequently the "Section on General Practice" ("SGP") which might well have been formed first, was only established as recently as 1974, aiming to bring the benefits of association to the enormous field of general practitioners of the law everywhere. In 1983, a third section was created as a direct result of the exceptional growth and level of activity of one of the "Committee" of the SBL, the new Section having the title "Section on Energy and Natural Resources Law" ("SERL"). The Objects of the IBA are set out in its Constitution. For present purposes we may confine ourselves to the first three Objects, namely:— 1. To establish and maintain relations and exchanges between Bar Associations and Law Societies and their members throughout the world. 2. To assist such Associations and Societies and members of the legal profession throughout the world to develop and improve the profession's organisation and status. 3. To assist members of the legal profession through- out the world, whether in the field of legal education qr otherwise, to develop and improve their legal service to the public. Perhaps these objects may be usefully paraphrased by saying that the IBA will only be of service to the community, or justify its existence, if it achieves the following: (i) improvement in the standard of legal services provided to the public client body; (ii) improvement in the standing and image of the !209