The Irish Law Society ought to change its coat of arms. An insignia featuring a couple of snarling rottweilers and a Tiny Tears crying doll would constitute a much more fitting emblem than the pair of noble bloodhounds and Lady Justice statuette that adorn the existing crest.
Simultaneously belligerent and thin-skinned, the Law Society is the country’s most temperamental professional association. And its reputation for unrivalled petulance was confirmed once again in recent days.
The latest in a long line of people to upset the delicate sensibilities of the society is John Fingleton, chairman of the Competition Authority. In response to media queries, Fingleton went public last week to sketch out some of the authority’s proposals for the introduction of real competition to the notoriously closed shop that is the legal profession.
The Law Society’s bilious reaction to Fingleton’s remarks suggests that our learned friends are still determined to resist any attempt to drag their antiquated customs and practices into the modern era. Little wonder. Reform would undoubtedly have an adverse impact on their notoriously fat pay packets.
Like all birds of prey, legal eagles behave as though their habits and requirements take precedence over the interests of those they regard as being beneath them. The competitive open market, they seem to believe, is only for the little people.
Last March, the Competition Authority published an interim report conducted by Indecon, the economic consultants, on the internal operation of eight professions — doctors, dentists, optometrists, vets, architects, engineers, solicitors and barristers. The report was another small step in the painfully slow process of opening up Ireland’s self-serving professional clubs.
To nobody’s amazement, it found that the medical and legal rackets were rife with arcane and restrictive practices which limited the entry of newcomers and artificially inflated prices. Some of the most damning indictments of the legal profession came from lawyers themselves. Over 60% of solicitors surveyed, for instance, believed that there was virtually no price competition among Irish barristers.
Using the Indecon report as a departure point, the Competition Authority launched a series of detailed studies of individual professions. A consultation paper on lawyers is currently being prepared for publication in early summer, and submissions from legal practitioners and users of their service have been invited. In media interviews, Fingleton outlined suggestions which he believed merited further discussion.
Among the ideas he articulated was the establishment of a Law Council to regulate the legal profession. At present, the Law Society acts as both representative and regulatory body, an obvious conflict of interest.
Fingleton also revealed that the authority was examining the validity of distinctions between solicitors and barristers and, among the latter, between junior and senior counsel. The quasi-liturgical etiquette which enshrouds these diverse grades of advocate is, many suspect, little more than a smokescreen to confound punters into paying higher fees for different aspects of what is essentially a standard service.
By any reckoning, Fingleton’s comments were unremarkable, his proposals verging on the timid. Nevertheless, the Law Society blew a gasket. The stated cause of the lawyers’ fury was the fact that Fingleton had spoken publicly about the authority’s thinking while the consultation process was ongoing, but it was clear that they didn’t like what he said either.
Gerard Griffin, Law Society president, dispatched a fuming letter to the Competition Authority, accusing its chairman of “personal bias” and having prejudged the outcome of the review.
He demanded that Fingleton “step aside” and play no further part in the study of competition within the legal profession. He also cancelled a meeting between the Law Society and the Competition Authority scheduled for Thursday, signalling an end to the association’s involvement in the consultation process. The rattle was well and truly flung out of the pram.
The Law Society’s indignation was obviously intended for a wider audience. While the letter sent to Fingleton was marked “private and confidential”, copies were issued to the media and e-mailed to every solicitor in the country before he received it. The lawyers seem to have been less interested in resolving their problem with the Competition Authority than in alerting everybody to the fact that they had one.
This trigger-happy eagerness to discredit the authority’s investigation is hardly surprising from a profession so institutionally averse to reform. Happily, however, the blatant transparency of such tactics exposes the limitations of the legalistic mindset when confronted with the complexities of the real world rather than the comparative simplicities of the courtroom.
The average court battle isn’t so much a search for truth as a scramble to pick the central issue, the ground on which each side believes the legal action can be most productively fought. The side that wins this argument is on its way to winning the case.
The Law Society has evidently decided that the issue of Fingleton’s putative “bias” is their most advantageous battlefield. This strategy offers a number of apparent benefits, not least an excuse for a dramatic exit from consultations which can be dismissed as a partisan sham. The only downside to the strategy is that few are likely to believe the allegation.
This is certainly what happened the last time the Law Society resorted to the “bias” charge when it felt threatened by the investigation into insurance premium prices conducted in 2001/2002 by the Motor Insurance Advisory Board (MIAB) under Dorothea Dowling.
As the role played by legal costs in driving up insurance prices moved centre-stage, the Law Society repeatedly accused Dowling of personal bias, arguing that her day-job as chief claims manager for CIE gave her a vested interest in the debate. The public, however, thought otherwise and wholeheartedly welcomed the MIAB’s conclusions.
Fortunately, like Dowling, Fingleton is not easily intimidated by lawyerly wrath. He and his colleagues are said to view the peevishness of the Law Society’s behaviour as evidence that they’re on the right track.
Commercial competition issues comprise only a tiny part of the myriad features of the Irish legal business that requires urgent overhaul. Yet the force and rancour of the Law Society’s reaction to the mere expression of modest trading reform proposals provides some indication of the depths of resistance we could expect were a comprehensive restructuring of the industry ever attempted.
Slowly but surely we are learning more about the hidden realities of this secretive and immensely powerful profession. To quote the (presumably ironic) motto on the Law Society’s coat of arms: Veritas vincet — let truth prevail.
