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Law Society aims to adapt to changing times
Sunday, January 04, 2009 By Kieran Wood
It’s a sign of the times that the Law Society’s annual conference - traditionally held in exotic, far-flung, tax deductible destinations - is being moved next year from Bilbao in Spain to Ireland. The theme of the conference - appropriately - will be ‘Practice management in a recession’.

The move was one of the first decisions of the society’s new president, John D Shaw, the third generation of his family to lead the solicitors’ representative body. Shaw’s father, Thomas, was president of the Law Society in 1988, while his grandfather, Dermot, held the office in 1956.The new president, who’s 44, is a partner in JA Shaw & Co Solicitors in Mullingar, Co Westmeath. Shaw couldn’t have taken over at a worse time. Confidence in the legal profession is at an all-time low following a series of scandals over the past 12 months.

The most high-profile cases were those of Michael Lynn and Thomas Byrne, who were both struck off by the President of the High Court. The two Dublin solicitors, who were fined €2million and €1million respectively, may have cost financial institutions more than €100 million. The Law Society’s director general, Ken Murphy, described the cases as a ‘‘major crisis for the society and the profession’’.

Donaghmede solicitor Niall Colfer was also struck off after misappropriating almost €1 million of clients’ money. Two other solicitors, Colm Carroll and Henry Colley of Roger Greene & Son, admitted operating a secret account containing €32 million in fees to avoid tax, and were suspended but not struck off. The Law Society has appealed the leniency of the penalty.

During the year, the Law Society received 1,745 complaints about the country’s 8,000 practising solicitors. The Regulation of Practice committee referred 23 complaints to the independent Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal, applied to the High Court to freeze the accounts of nine solicitors, suspended the practising certificates of five others and even referred a firm of reporting accountants to its professional body.

The Law Society president accepts that there are bad apples in the profession, but says they are not representative. ‘‘There are solicitors who do things that are downright wrong,” said Shaw. ‘‘I don’t particularly want to list them, but I am not going to defend them. In some extreme cases, they have taken clients’ money.

‘‘The figures have risen exponentially in recent years because of the [bursting of the] property bubble. Perhaps people were caught up in the boom and took their eye off the ball and the safeguards were not there. I’d have to concede that the profession has suffered significant professional damage, but the vast majority of solicitors do their best and I think they have been very let down by the few.”

Those few, however, have cost their colleagues dearly. All solicitors are obliged to contribute to a compensation fund which pays out in cases of misconduct.

At the end of 2007, there was €27.6 million in the fund, compared to €34.5 million at the end of 2006. During the first seven months of 2008, 420 claims were received (almost double the previous year’s figure), amounting to €13.4 million. By the end of last July, the net value of the fund had halved to €15 million. The result has been a massive increase in premiums for practice insurance.

‘‘There’s been a poor claims history over the past year, and there’s been a substantial increase [in claims] this year,” said Shaw

‘‘In many cases, insurance premiums would have doubled since last year. It does cause some disquiet during difficult economic times; an increase of that magnitude is not what people would hope to see, but we don’t have any control over the market.”

Those ‘‘difficult economic times’’ have also put the brakes on the burgeoning growth of the profession. The numbers qualifying as solicitors had been growing steadily over the past decade, but last September, there was an 11 per cent drop in the numbers beginning the Law Society’s professional practice course, a reflection of the difficulties experienced by newly-qualified solicitors in finding work. Shaw remains upbeat, however.

‘‘We have put very substantial numbers through the profession over the past ten years, and they have all managed to get traineeships,” he said. Shaw himself was educated by the Christian Brothers in Mullingar and at Clongowes Wood College, Co Kildare. He graduated with a law degree from University College Dublin in 1985, and qualified as a solicitor in 1989.

‘‘When I qualified, many of us would have come from legal families. Nowadays, students can study a variety of degrees, such as law and commerce, law and languages, law and accounting, and they come from a wide range of different backgrounds.

‘‘The role of the solicitor has also changed very significantly. Graduates from the society’s law school will probably have to look beyond private practice in future, and consider in house employment or working for the state or in a commercial role. In the short term, private practice will be more significantly affected by the economic downturn.”

However, he pointed out, the current employment problems are not unique to the solicitors’ profession.

‘‘Solicitors are businesses at the end of the day, subject to the same economic pressures and conditions, and we depend on a certain level of activity in the marketplace. Our advice to solicitors is to keep a cool head. It would be a shame to see solicitors losing good staff after all their investment in education. This situation will change at some stage, although it’s likely to be a slow recovery,” said Shaw.

The downturn in the economy has also led to an upsurge in personal problems for many solicitors. LawCare - a charity funded by the Law Societies of Ireland and Britain - provides confidential advice to lawyers and their families about health, alcohol abuse or stress issues. Since it began operating in Ireland at the start of 2008, it has received up to six times as many calls as its British equivalent. Almost 85 per cent of the calls related to stress or depression.

‘‘I would encourage solicitors to use the services of LawCare if they have problems,” said Shaw. ‘‘LawCare is an independent confidential service, more in the line of counselling, but we also operate a panel of experienced solicitors who are available to give advice to colleagues on legal or quasi-legal issues.”

As a member of the Council of the Law Society of Ireland since 1992, Shaw has had experience of defaulting solicitors.

‘‘As a council member, I was on the regulatory side, because the council delegates regulatory functions to the Complaints and Client Review Committee and the Regulation of Practice Committee,” he said. But, paradoxically, as president, Shaw will have less contact with the profession’s regulatory side.

‘‘I don’t get briefed about what is in the system. Sometimes the first that council members hear of any problem is when they read the newspapers, especially when the society is moving swiftly for a freezing order or similar.”

To emphasise the separation of the society’s representative and disciplinary roles, the regulation department and its 59 staff moved two weeks ago to new 10,000 square foot offices in George’s Court in Smithfield. ‘‘It’s a demonstration of our commitment to good and effective regulation,” said Shaw. ‘‘All this is funded by the profession, so it’s going to cost solicitors on their practising cert, and we have to be conscious of the cost of these developments.”

Shaw is a member of the Property Registration Authority and was involved with the society’s report on e-conveyancing. During the coming year, the Law Society hopes to start processing contracts, deeds and mortgages electronically.

‘‘From the stage of contract to getting a property registered with the new system will take weeks, or even days, rather than months,” Shaw predicted. He also wants to see more use made of alternative dispute resolution. ‘‘Mediation is getting quite a high profile at the moment; certain judges have used it and we’d like to see it developed further,” said Shaw.

‘‘Collaborative law and arbitration also help people to avoid becoming involved in unnecessary costly litigation.”

During his presidency, Shaw also hopes to visit at least one of the society’s Rule of Law projects, which provide legal training for lawyers in developing countries, such as South Africa, Ethiopia, Kosovo and Bosnia. He will also undertake the traditional round of visits to county bar associations nationwide.

It will all leave little time to be with his wife, Eileen, and their two children, Caoimhe, 12, and Patrick, 10, and even less time for his hobbies, golf and singing with the Mullingar Cathedral choir.

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