Reaction:The creation of specialist "conveyancers" has been shown not to work in similar jurisdictions to Ireland, while any attempt to allow barristers to form partnerships would be anti-competitive, representatives of the legal profession claimed yesterday.
The Law Society and the Bar Council also claimed that the report's call for the establishment of a legal services commission had been "overtaken by events".
They pointed out that proposals already existed to create a legal services ombudsman and to implement the report of a working group on legal costs.
Ken Murphy, director general of the Law Society, said the proposals for an ombudsman represented a "proportionate" response to the issues facing the profession, rather than the establishment of a legal services commission.
He said the report had failed to demonstrate other than by "sheer assertion" how the profession was anti-competitive.
"If anybody else took 5½ years to produce such a relatively short report, they would be criticised by the Competition Authority," he said. "This term self-regulation is in fact a misnomer . . . what we have is co-regulation."
He said the introduction of conveyancers in Scotland had been a "fiasco", while "cut-throat" competition already existed between solicitors for conveyancing business here. There was also a high degree of knowledge of the law required for much conveyancing work in Ireland, and he doubted a "pseudo profession" would survive.
The Bar Council said it would be studying the final report "in detail". But while there were points on which the Competition Authority and it agreed, there were other points where the council felt the report attempted to apply "solely competition standards to the administration of justice without regard to the impact this will have on society".
"Some of the recommendations such as the proposal that barristers should be able to form partnerships, are in fact anti-competitive," it said.
"Mini-cartels will form, where specialists in an area who are currently competing with each other will instead band together as a group and effectively corner the market in their speciality.
"It is essential that the administration of justice does not become a mere commodity and be solely governed by economic ideas."
Conor Maguire SC, chairman of the Honourable Society of King's Inns, welcomed the "thorough and detailed" report. "In so far as the recommendations relate to the education of barristers, the society intends to study the report carefully."
