The Gazette 1994

GAZETTE

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 1994

T h e I r i sh S o c i e t y f o r E u r o p e an L a w FIDE XVI Congress of the International Federation for European Law (FIDE) Rome, 12-15 October 1994 Under the patronage of His Excellency, the President of the Italian Republic • Social policies in the Community Legal Order and the European Economic Area • Liberalisation of Economic Activities and Privatisation of Enterprises in relation to Competition Law National rapporteurs from the Irish Society for European Law will present their reports to the Rome Congress. The Annual General Meeting of the Society will be held in the Commission Offices of the European Union in Molesworth Street, Dublin 2 on October 20, 1994 at 6.00 p.m. The Chairman, Vincent Power, will deliver a lecture reviewing legal developments in the European Union. A wine reception will follow. Volume 3, No. 1 1994 of the Irish Journal of European Law edited by James O'Reilly, SC and Anthony M. Collins, BL, will shortly be sent to members. Persons interested in acquiring further information, including details of the Society, should contact the Secretariat, Office of the Solicitor, Telecom Eireann, 52 Harcourt Street, Dublin 2. Tel: (01)671 4444 Ext. 5929. Fax: (01)679 3980. • Topics • The Principle of Subsidiarity Annual General Meeting Journal

share anything he was a perfect confidant". His room, he told Ralph, had 223 briefs on the floor; "I tell Mrs Hayes that she must never dare to move one of them - she complains that the room is impossible to clean. But any disorder in a system is fatal. 1 know where to put my hands on everything." Mr de Vere White's master died leaving him in charge of the office at the age of 24, with a ready-made clientele mostly of country landowners. "The Horse Show made very little difference in the office. None of the staff was given time off to attend during the week but country clients, up for the show, dropped in to ask questions. It was always interesting to see in person someone who, up to then, had been a name in white paint on a black tin box." (The Remainderman). Most young men in his books are dependant upon older solicitors, frequently shown as pompous and didactic and regarding clients as an interruption in a day's work, hazards in a professional minefield. Two older men who have a wider vision are Stephen Foster and Batley, a law clerk. Mr Stephen is attempting to develop his traditional family firm over the ineffective reservations of his partners by seeking the business of the "new men" coming into prominence in business life. He is keenly aware of the potential damage of a scandal over a will to which he might have subscribed his name as witness the day after the testatrix had signed. His story is tightly plotted and very well integrated, with the widest gallery of human nature, including many varieties of solicitor, in any of his novels. These include the vaguely disreputable client who recognises the utility of a respectable firm of lawyers and who "glanced at the contract. He never read one. It weakened his hand if, later, he had to take an action for negligence against a solicitor" and the partner's wife who reflected that "the office produced money, and not always as much of that as one had been led to expect. Apart from that it breeded only dullness and routine and the worst kind of worry".

Stephen Foster is a leader in the profession. Mr Batley in The

Remainderman has given 45 years' service as a law clerk in Ely Place, silently resenting his employer and Michael Whaley's master, Mr Daunt. When Michael is told by Mr Daunt that he would not approve of him going to Trinity to further his education, Mr Batley, up to then a cypher going through the professional motions, reveals an unexpected side to his personality, urging Michael to read books on law and politics which he has collected: "I hoped when you began to read you would come to see what a wonderful thing the law is. I want you to look at it through the eyes of great men. . . I buy one every year. I've read them so often. I know them by heart. Law is a beautiful thing when you read that class of book. We can't live without it. It's when you get it in its raw state that it bores you and sickens you. But these were great men. When I read them I knew a man could be proud of being a lawyer." Later Mr Batley is led away after he has hurled his employer's papers out of the window into the street, but not before he has presented his library to Michael. Mr de Vere White's experiences in the practice of law would have enriched and given much food for thought to his literary impulse and his interest in human nature and its idiosyncrasies. His work is a legacy by an Irish lawyer of great literary merit. It will give pleasure to many for ages to come.

*Daire Hogan is a partner in the firm McCann FitzGerald •

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