The Gazette 1986

GAZETTE

MARCH 1986

First Young Solicitors' International Conference — Windermere by Ken Murphy* Solicitor

Last August the Society of Young Solicitors placed a notice in the Law Society's Newsletter inviting appli- cations from those who wished to attend the first ever Joint Conference for the young solicitors of Ireland, Scotland, England and Wales to be held on the first weekend in October (4th - 6th October, 1985) in Bowness-on-Windermere in the English Lake District. We awaited the response to this with some trepidation. When examining the feasibility of this with our counter- parts on the Committees of the Scottish Young Lawyers Association and the Young Solicitors Group of England and Wales we had been forced to 'guarantee' that at • least 40 of our members would be prepared to cross the Irish Sea for this conference. Pessimists on the Com- mittee had subsequently questioned whether such a number of volunteers could be found. A contingency plan had been devised to meet the expected shortfall by 'press-ganging' former committee members to the aid of the Society in its hour of need. We need not have worried. To our delight more than 200 requests for booking forms were received! As a result of this remarkable interest we obtained an increase in our apportionment of places to 54. Even when these had all been allocated on a strictly first come first served basis there were still, of course, a great many disappointed people to whom we had to return their booking forms and cheques for the all-in price of IR£87.50. Apart from the 54 in the 'official party' a dozen or more people made their own arrangements for transport and accommodation in order to attend the conference. Indeed perhaps the best example of the enthusiasm which this weekend generated is of one Dublin solicitor who arrived at the B & I Line departure point at the North Wall some 15 minutes before sailing time purely in order to 'drop o f f ' a colleague and wave us goodbye. On dis- covering, however, that there had been a last minute cancellation she parked her car and with a display of impulsiveness so sadly lacking in our profession, with the houselights on at home and the sum of exactly IR£1 in her pocket, she stepped aboard. As things turned out she appeared to enjoy the weekend more than almost anyone else. Her secretary's reaction when she received a telephone call from Liverpool the following morning is not recorded. We crossed to Liverpool on the Thursday night and on the Friday morning we travelled by coach to Bowness- on-Windermere. As we had some time in hand we arranged with the coach driver to travel by a less direct but more scenic route in order to give us an opportunity to observe some of the picturesque villages and famous natural beauty of Southern Cumbria. In spite of the unfavour- able weather this seemed to be appreciated by everyone on the bus except for the possessor of a large hangover who was heard to enquire from the back of the bus whether a second whiparound for the driver might persuade him to bring us directly to the hotel.

The format for the conference was for three separate 'discussions' to take place. Each of the three jurisdictions provided a single guest speaker who led one session on a topic of his own choice and then played a minor role in the other two discussions merely outlining where rele- vant the differences of law or practice in his own country. The Irish guest speaker was Michael V. O'Mahony, Solicitor, who delivered a paper on the principles under- lying assessment of damages in personal injuries actions in Ireland. Concentrating primarily on the recent judg- ments in Reddy -v- Bates, Cooke -v- Walsh and Synnott -v- Quinnsworth he stimulated a most interesting and broad-ranging discussion on his chosen topic. On the following day Mr. Donald Rennie, Solicitor, from Edinburgh spoke on residential property convey- ancing in Scotland and Mr. John Appleby, Solicitor, from Birmingham gave a most amusing and enlighten- ing insight into the law on divorce and separation in England. To conclude the conference on Sunday morning our special guest speaker Lord Grimond of Firth (former leader of the Liberal Party, and a Barrister) gave a talk on " t he failure of the l aw" which largely consisted of both a plea for and prediction of the ultimate fusion of the solicitors' and barristers' branches of the profession. Stimulating and worthwhile as the lectures were the true test for success in the conference such as this is the extent to which the different sets of delegates mingle together. In order to encourage this we had arranged that at the black tie banquet on the Saturday night each delegate would be obliged to sit with people from other jurisdictions on either side. To our delight, however, this forced integration was quite unnecessary as through- out the whole weekend solicitors from every country mingled freely and enthusiastically together to the benefit and enjoyment of all. Although the weather over the four days was rather mixed we were lucky in that the Saturday afternoon was warm and clear and allowed the delegates, whether by taking boat trips, cycling or walking, to enjoy some of the breath-taking scenery of the Lake District immortal- ised in the poetry of William Wordsworth. Indeed one of the most popular excursions was north to Lake Grassmere to see Dove Cottage and Wordsworth's grave in the grounds of St. Oswald's Church. By a happy coincidence the Irish party was composed exactly half and half of males and females and of solici- tors practising in the Dublin area on the one hand and in the rest of the country on the other. Modesty should not be allowed to obscure the fact that a disproportionate responsibility for the success of the entire weekend is due to the Irish contingent which not only outstripped all of the others numerically and in terms of contribution at the legal discussions but also brought an enormous vitality and gaiety to the whole weekend.

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