The Gazette 1993

SEPTEMBER 1993

GAZETTE

Irish Events Law Society President, Raymond Monahan ; Senior Vice-President, Michael O'Mahony, and immediate Past-President, Adrian Bourke, led the Society's campaign at the ABA conference to promote the services available from Irish lawyers to American firms which have business to do in Europe. The Irish Consul General in New York, Donal Hamill, and his wife, Bernadette, hosted a reception for the Irish delegation which was attended by prominent ABA members arid Irish-American legal contacts. The Law Society, in conjunction with the International Law & Practice j Section of the ABA, hosted a showcase luncheon on Monday 9 August. The President of the High Court, the Hon. Mr. Justice Liam Hamilton, (kindly filling in at short notice for Dr. Garret FitzGerald who was indisposed), addressed the luncheon on the theme "The Influence of the American Constitution and the European Court of Justice on Irish Law". The influence of American constitutional jurisprudence had been benign and persuasive, said the Judge, who traced its influence particularly with regard to recognition and development of unenumerated personal rights in the Irish Constitution. However, the influence of the European Court of Justice could j not be regarded as benign as to a certain extent the Irish courts had had to cede jurisdiction to the ECJ, he said. Members of the Law Society delegation were guests of honour at the ABA Gavel Media Awards luncheon where ABA President, Michael McWilliams, especially recognised the winner of the Society's inaugural Justice Media Awards competition, freelance journalist, Anne O'Carroll. When asking her to stand to accept a round of applause, the ABA President quipped that the first prize in the Society's Justice Media Awards competition had been a week at the ABA, while the second prize had been two weeks!

Weird, Wacky and Wonderful Delegates attending the ABA Annual Conference had a choice of 2,619 seminars dealing with every imaginable law-related topic. Seminars such as "Are My Genes Off Limits", "Till Death Do Us Part: Spousal Elective Share Reforms", "Why is my Client Nuts? - an Enquiry into the Psycho-dynamics of Divorce", "Beer Regulation - Current Issues", competed for delegates' attention alongside more conventional programmes such as "Legal Trends and Issues in the 90s and Beyond", "Service Quality as the Ultimate Marketing Strategy", and "Advancing Justice: is there Justice for All?" But many delegates attending agreed that the real value of the conference was the chance to network with professional colleagues. As one delegate from New Orleans put it "as lawyers we face the same problems wherever we are." ABA President, J. Michael McWilliams, told delegates at the Opening Assembly "this experience is your chance to exchange views with lawyers from around the world or around the corner." • AK What's in a Name? Seymour Chase, a lawyer from Hackensack, New Jersey, believes that the American Bar Association should change its name because the general public does not associate the word "bar" with lawyer. "An informal survey of six people on a street corner would show that five out of the six don't know that "bar" means lawyers," he said. "We should change the name of the association to the American Lawyers Association because the public doesn't associate us with what we do." •

Correspondence

The Editor, Gazette,

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Re: Compulsory Irish requirement | Dear Editor ! I was interested to read the response of Anton Delap Uas. to some of the ! comments attributed to me in the May | issue of the Gazette on the | compulsory Irish requirement for solicitors. He referred to one aspect of the overall matter which I discussed. It was not nor is it my intention to | "undermine the daily effectiveness and usage" of the Irish language "in the legal system". I simply stated what I understand is the factual position. If Mr Delap is in a position to furnish me and the Education Committee with substantial corroborative evidence that | there is a consistent and growing demand by solicitors' clients to conduct their business through the i medium of Irish then we will be happy to take that into account in the Education of solicitors' apprentices. I also invite Mr Delap and those who have a genuine interest in the Irish ! language to suggest in specific rather | than in general terms the "constructive j ; approach" that the Law Society j should adopt in future examinations in I the Irish language. He might also spell j out what he thinks are the "practical needs of the profession". Regretfully, when specialist courses were suggested in the past to those j whom we thought were concerned with fostering the language they were rejected, while CLE courses in the Irish language specifically tailored i towards improving the practical Í knowledge of the profession had to be abandoned due to lack of interest. Yours etc., Patrick O'Connor Chairman Education Committee •

Barbara Cahalane

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