Shatter’s influence still looms large in Law Society

The Law Society and Bar Council have won big concessions in the imminent overhaul of the legal profession.

Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald has command of the file but some of the most significant changes to the original scheme can be traced right back to her predecessor Alan Shatter.

Of course Mr Shatter is long gone from the Department of Justice. But his influence remains.

Ms Fitzgerald told Cabinet colleagues that the former minister had struck a “deal” in early 2012 with the Law Society in which it would retain financial and accounting oversight of selectors and responsibility for their €80 million compensation fund.

This presented considerable legal and operational complexity, although the agreement reflected concern to avoid a situation in which an arm of the State in the form of new regulator would take any ownership of liabilities linked to the fund.

Thus the Law Society, which will itself be overseen by the new Legal Services Regulatory Authority, keeps the infrastructure and liabilities associated with the fund.

The case was made that the society was the only body with the expertise, experience and motivation to protect the fund. In addition, the case was made that the credibility and effectiveness of the system and the interest of maintaining a visible threat to errant solicitors depended on the society being in a position to pursue disciplinary action on its own initiative.

The society won the argument but the quid pro quo is regulation of its own activities by the new authority.

This gives rise to a novel expression in the form of “co-regulatory split” between the Law Society, established in 1830, and the nascent body.

Quite how it will all work in practice remains to be seen, and should be interesting to watch.