The Gazette 1991

GAZETTE DECEMBER 1991 New President Will Oppose Threats to Solicitors' Incomes

Opening message from Adrian P. Bourke, President, 1991-1992. It is an honour to serve as President of the Law Society and I am looking f o rwa rd to an exciting and challenging year ahead. In this article I would like to set out what I see as the priorities for my presidency. The list of the Council of the Society and the members of each committee are listed on pages 386 to 390 of this Gazette, and I would encourage every member of the Society to use the Committee network to raise any issue you consider important and to feed through your ideas and views. The Law Society has an important role to fulfil not only in representing the interests of solicitors but also in ensuring that the profession itself maintains the highest professional standards and responds e f f ec t i ve ly to an increasingly consumer-orientated public. It is vital, in this context, that the Society is accountable - and is seen to be so - for the manner in which it deals with legitimate complaints against members of the profession. For that reason, I welcome the new powers in the Solicitors (Amendment) Bill, 1991 to deal with complaints and the appointment of a Legal Ombudsman. I look forward to the challenge of leading the solicitors profession at a time of change for the profession in Ireland. The Solicitors Bill 1991, following in the wake of the report by the Fair Trade Commission on the legal profession, sets the agenda for the profession for the foreseeable future. While there is much to be welcomed in the Solicitors Bill, I am determined to lead the profession in opposition to some of the Bill's provisions which threaten the profession and which

are not, in my view, in the public interest.

general implications of the con- tinuing high demand for access to the profession and the numbers currently qualifying annually. It is questionable whether the pro- ession can sustain an additional 300 or more new entrants annually without creating serious risks for the public. I am not aware of any other profession in Ireland, or elsewhere, where there is an open-ended policy of admissions. Resources available in the pro- ession for education and regulation of such growing numbers are not unlimited and are already coming under serious strain. I believe that, if matters continue as they are, there is a serious risk that, at the prevailing level of growth in the economy, there will be unem- loyment in the profession in the near future. Is it realistic to be qualifying so many new solicitors annually when there is insufficient work available for them? The community is already adequately catered for in terms of availability of legal practitioners and it is questionable if it is right to go on qualifying more lawyers for a stagnant or dwindling market place. If there are too many solicitors competing for work, expecially in a period of recession, standards could be compromised and integrity threatened to the detri- ment of the public. The introduction of fee advertising in the Solicitors Bill is, in this context, a step in the wrong direction because it will encourage cos t - cu t t i ng and, inevitably, threaten standards. A legal service is essentially about quality - price cannot be allowed to be the sole determining factor.

Real and Serious Pressures on Solicitors' Incomes The Society has a dual role, being both the regulator of the profession and its representative body. I see it as a task of my presidency to achieve a balance between these sometimes conflicting roles at a time of increasing competition within the profession resulting from the substantial growth in numbers over the past 10 years. There are now real and serious pressures on the incomes of solicitors and the proposals contained in the Solicitors Bill to allow non-legally qualified bodies to do work of a legal nature would further exacerbate those pressures. The Government should be aware of the dangers inherent in a situation where the force of competition places the livelihoods of members of the profession at risk and threatens the high standards of professionalism t hat have traditionally been maintained by the profession. The way forward, I believe, is to achieve a balance between, on the one hand, having adequate competition to ensure that the public get good value for money but not, in so doing, to create a situation where solicitors are driven out of the profession and put out of business or put in situations which compromise their integrity and high standards. Fees Advertising "s step in the wrong direction". I am also concerned about the

" . . . / am determined

to lead the profession

in

opposition

to some of the [Solicitors]

Bill's

provisions

which threaten

the profession

and which are not. . . in

the public

interest."

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