The Gazette 1984

INCORPORATED LAW SOCIETY OF IRELAND GAZETTE

Vol. 78 No. 10

December 1984

In this issue

Comment

Legal Information — A New Era

Comment

263

Wide-ranging Discussion at Society's A.G.M

A T the recent launching of the new Irish Current Law Statutes Annotated by Sweet & Maxwell, our colleague, Mervyn Taylor, T.D., remarked upon the greatly increased number of texts on Irish Law available today as contrasted with his own student days when Kiely's Equity was virtually the only text on Irish Law available. In the past 10 years the change has been dramatic largely through the efforts of the Law Society and Professional Books Ltd., and through the patronage of the Arthur Cox Foundation. Scarcely any but the most arcane legal subject has escaped the attention of writers on Irish Law. Equally important is the fact that, now that the market for Irish Law text has been established, the two major UK legal publishers, Sweet & Maxwell and Butterworths, are again showing an interest in producing Irish texts. Nor has this new found interest resulted simply in "Irish Supplements" to established English texts; publications dedicated to Irish Law are now in the pipeline. The launching of ITELIS through the partnership of EUROLEX and the Irish Times brings computer-based legal information retrieval to this country for the first time (although there are a couple of experimental systems in existence using an Irish Database). It remains to be seen how widely used ITELIS will be; the US and UK experience shows, however, that after something of a boom start followed by the almost inevitable slump systems of this kind find a permanent and important place in the provision of legal information to the practitioner. In retrospect, it is easy to take the view that this growth in the production of Irish text and legal information was inevitable given the accelerated divergence in UK and Irish Statute Law in recent years and the consequent increasing unreliability of English texts for the Irish practitioner. It is nonetheless a fact that it is the present generation of Irish Lawyers which will most clearly be its beneficiaries. • 263

265

Practice Notes

269

Vice Presidents 1984/85

271

Solicitors' Benevolent Association — An appeal for help

273

Law Society Dinner Dance

274

Crossword

276

Change and Reform

277

Presentation of Parchments

283

Professional Information

286

Executive Editor: Mary Buckley Editorial Board:

William Earley, Chairman John F. Buckley Gary Byrne Geraldine Clarke Charles R. M. Meredith Michael V. O'Mahony Maxwell Sweeney

Advertising:

Liam O hOisin, Telephone 305236

Printing: Turner's Printing Co. Ltd., Longford The views expressed in this publication, save where other-wise indicated, are the views of the contributors and not necessarily the views of the Council of the Society. The appearance of an advertisement in this publication does not necessarily indicate approval by the Society for the product or service advertised. ABC Membership has been approved pending first audit

for the period July to December 1984. Published at Blackhall Place, Dublin 7.