The Gazette 1984

SEPTEMBER1984

GAZETTE

supply a better and wider service using all the aids now becoming available to us through modern technology. But we must be careful not to allow this pressure, and even a personal desire for change, to allow us in any way to dilute our professional standards or diminish our

seminating this information — informational adver- tising — is clearly unobjectionable. But in the field of commerce, advertising is not only or even mainly informational — it is promotional. It involves proclaiming the excellence of the advertiser's wares and, expressly or by implication, making an adve r se c omp a r i s on with c omp e t i ng p r o d u c t s. Promotional advertising — touting — is wholly inconsistent with the standards of any true profession. And professional standards stand or fall together. Once allow them to be eroded in one respect and they will crumble in others. Inter-Professional Partnerships and Fee-Sharing This is only one tiny corner of the changes which are being made at the present time. I would only refer to one of them — the practicality and propriety of inter-profes- sional partnership and fee-sharing. If this will provide a better service to the public, as well it might, and if it can be achieved without risk to our own professional standards, I do not see why it should not be permitted and indeed encouraged. It would only reflect, and might complement, similar developments in the financial and banking sectors of the City of London. But the solicitors involved would have to ensure that the existing standards concerning the avoidance of conflict of interest were maintained and, in relation to an inter-professional partnership, they would have to accept personal responsibility that the conduct of their non- solicitor partners conformed with the rules of the solicitors' profession and not only with those of the partners' own profession. It would be understandable if the other profession imposed a similar requirement and that could only be for the public good, since clients of the partnership would enjoy the benefit of the strictest of each profession's standards. Affording Civil Justice So let me look at the roots of a few sacred cows. The first is that every citizen has a right to civil justice and that therefore the public purse should provide it virtually free of charge. This is a complete non sequitur. Every citizen has the right to food and shelter, but no-one suggests that the public purse should provide it, unless the citizen is unable to do so himself. The criminal courts are, of course, in a special position. They exist solely for the benefit of the public at large and no-one uses them voluntarily. Prima facie, therefore, they should be paid for by the public, although those who render their existence necessary, and could afford it, might be required not only to pay for the prosecution costs, but also to contribute to the overhead expenses of the court. This in an addition to any fines. The true view is surely that civil justice should be available to every citizen at a price which he can reasonably afford. On that basis, the present system is generous to a fault. Take a simple High Court action. The daily cost has been estimated at about £1,400, of which £800 represents the cost of publicly provided services and £600 the costs of the parties. Why do we meet the public costs in full, but make no contribution towards private costs, other than through legal aid? Why do we not put the whole of the costs on to the litigants and apply legal aid to the public as well as to the private costs? The result of the present system in one particular case was that the public purse subsidised two major oil companies to the tune of

dedication. Advertising

Take advertising. My whole theme is the need for the public to know the service which the profession offers. Advertising must therefore be desirable. Received truth at the moment is that competition breeds efficiency. In fact there has always been acute competition within the profession, both in price and in services, but let that pass. Outside the profession advertising has always been one of the sharpest of competitive weapons. It must therefore follow, so it is said, that advertising within the profession is doubly desirable, both in order to inform and to stimulate still further competition. But is it? Experience from across the Atlantic, where it has been held that the First Amendment gives lawyers an unlimited constitutional right to advertise, suggests caution. Only last August the Chief Justice of the United States in a speech in Chicago condemned those American lawyers who marketed their professional services on television, radio and in the newspapers as if they were selling motor cars, dog foods, cosmetics or hair tonic. Advertising is not necessarily incompatible with the maintenance of professional standards, but it very easily can be. The public has a need to know who is and who is not a qualified solicitor and where he carries on his profession. It has a need to know what expense will be involved in using his professional services. It has a need to know in what branches of law he is experienced. Dis- Safeguard

f

Business Systems

SAFEGUARD SYSTEMS IRELAND LTD.

LUCAN, CO. DUBLIN. Telephone 0 1 - 5 8 0 1 9 0, 5 5 1 3 6 9, 5 5 1 2 51

Full provision for V.A.T.

The Alternative to the Computer

A Safeguard Solicitors Accounting System incor- porating our unique cheque Application will give you instant Book-keeping with full arithmetic control. Please write or phone for our. free accounting manual and further information without, of course, any obligation.

Complies fully with the Solicitors' Accounts Regulations.

!278