The Gazette 1996

GAZETTE

NOVEMBER 1996

N EW S

New President: Frank Daly

didn't miss for about ten years'. These days you'd have to know over 3,000 solicitors if you wanted to make the same claim - that's a lot of pints after work. When his uncle and the other partner died within months of each other in 1972, Frank was left holding the baby, so to speak. 'I was only 29 at the time and felt I was too young to be running a practice on my own. We had some fairly serious clients, and I felt an older figure would help'. He didn't have far to look for a mentor: in 1973 he amalgamated with Edmund Hayes, his next door neighbour on Cork's South Mall. 'We literally broke a big hole through the wall!', recalls Daly. A year later he amalgamated with John Ronan and Nicholas Comyn. Daly Hayes then became Ronan Daly Hayes. A further merger in 1982 saw the firm renamed Ronan Daly Jermyn. With 13 lawyers, it is now one of the biggest commercial firms outside Dublin. Perhaps one of the more surprising revelations about qualifying during the swinging sixties is that everi^back then people were telling Frank Daly not to do law, that there was no living in it. That will sound familiar to today's apprentices. 'The good lawyers will always make a lot of money,' Daly argues. 'But it's going to get harder for the smaller firms unless they are very good. There is still room for the good one-man practitioner who is available to his clients, who communicates with them and does his job well - and there always will be. Many sole practitioners have made an excellent living out of the law'. Specialisation is another way of ensuring that business will boom. 'If you become a "boutique lawyer," as they're referred to in the UK, and just do one subject such as licensing or tax or patents, you'll absolutely fly'.

entering the profession, there has also been an explosion in the amount of law that solicitors have to digest. While criminal law is dominating the headlines, family law is set to take centre stage again when the divorce rules come in. Then there is European law. How does the incoming president think the profession will cope with the pressures on it? 'The profession will meet all its obligations', he says. 'It always has - and more. It's been providing a kind of legal aid for years: it's been called "no foal, no fee", which is now a dirty word, but there are hundreds of plaintiffs over the years who could not have employed a lawyer except on the basis of the lawyer getting a fee if he wins. In the UK, only this year, they have recognised that and have permitted "no foal, no fee" cases where up to last year it was prohibited'. 'There has been some minor abuse of this regime by overcharging plaintiffs, but every lawyer is entitled to be paid for the work done and the risk undertaken. The Law Society is very active in stamping out overcharging, and it is now under control'. As president, Frank Daly will be trying to steer the Law Society through what could well be a turbulent year - particularly with a general election looming and the rash promises that might bring. Daly has held a seat on the Council for the last 20 years, and has seen the Law Society grow and change along with the profession. 'When I first started, the meetings were held in the Solicitors Building in the Four Courts. Over the years, of course, the Society's got much bigger and become very professional. It's had to, with membership growing to 6,000. This has imposed huge strains, but the Society has met the challenges well'. Among the goals the lists for his term of office are: better communication with

Frank Daly

Not everyone gets to realise their childhood dreams, but Frank Daly did - and now he's at the top of his chosen career. Conal O'Boyle talks to the new president of the Law Society Frank Daly is one of the lucky ones: he grew up to be what he always wanted to be when he was young. While other children dreamed of being soldiers or fire engines, young Frank's mind turned to the law. 'Since about the age of ten I wanted to be a lawyer', he says. 'I never wanted to be anything else. It never even occurred to me to be anything else'. After a stint in University College Cork where he got his BCL, he spent a year with the Law Society in the Four Courts. He qualified in 1966 and immediately returned to Cork to take up a place in his uncle's firm. Of course, things were a little different back then. For a start, there were only 760 solicitors in the whole country. 'I would think that I got to know well over half the profession', he says, 'particularly through the Society of Young Solicitors' meetings which I

Apart from an explosion in numbers

316