AT A RECENT Irish Women Lawyers Association dinner, sole practitioner Geraldine Kelly found herself sitting next to Chief Justice Susan Denham and former president Mary Robinson, and the trio fell into a long discussion about the difficulties of juggling family and career. Geraldine, who is the current president of the Dublin Solicitors Bar Association (DSBA), says the conclusion was that without good childcare it’s very difficult to continue working.
In 1994, Kelly decided to start her own general law practice in Kimmage. She describes herself as “very determined and very ambitious”, but admits it was a brave move. “I had just got married and had two young children straight away,” she says. It was a hectic time and there were sacrifices to be made along the way, but she was able to make it work because she had a very good childminder at home and great support from her family. “There’s never a right time or a wrong time. As long as you’re able to balance work and family life, there’s no reason why you can’t succeed,” she says.
The life of a sole practitioner has its pros and cons. On the one hand, the flexibility lends itself to a healthy work-life balance – because Geraldine’s office is close to where she lives, she was able to check in on her children during the day. She also offers flexibility to her clients – if evenings suit someone best, then that’s when she’ll meet them. “The one downside of being a sole practitioner is that you’re on call 24-7,” she says. During a recent holiday to Portugal, she dialled in to work for at least an hour every day.
However, she enjoys her work and has forged lasting relationships with her clients. “My business is primarily made up of repeat clients.”
Over the years, Geraldine somehow found the time to become very involved with the DSBA, serving on the council, chairing committees and also playing the role of “social queen”, organising the association’s many social events. “What you put into the DSBA, you get out of it tenfold. The collegiality is just fantastic,” she says. She has now taken on the mantle of president in what is proving a particularly busy year for both the association and the wider legal profession.
This year, the DSBA has ramped up its lobbying activities, specifically in relation to the new Legal Services Regulation Bill and the Mediation Bill. “We want a workable Bill that’s going to increase the profile of the legal profession but will also give the public a transparent service . . . Thankfully complaints will now be taken away from the Law Society. It’s very important for the public to see that we are willing to do that.” The association is now “very happy” with the Bill in its current form, she says, but initially it had reservations, and plenty of them. In fact, it recommended 50 amendments to the Bill to Minister for Justice Alan Shatter at a meeting in January. One major concern related to the lack of provision for limited liability practices in the Bill, an issue that has since been addressed by Mr Shatter.
In relation to the Mediation Bill, Kelly says that she personally is very much in favour of mediation. “It gives members of the public an option that if there is a dispute it can go to mediation and they’re not forced down the court road.” But aren’t legal professionals concerned about the impact on their business, and their fee income, if disputes are increasingly resolved through mediation? Not surprisingly, she doesn’t accept this.
“There is plenty of work out there for all of the legal profession . . . [for example] in advising clients about mediation, if not actually representing them.”
However, Kelly is not convinced that the cost to the client of going down the mediation route will necessarily be all that much less than the court route. The main advantage, as she sees it, will be the ability to avoid lengthy delays waiting to get the matter heard in the courts. “At the end of the day, the client is prepared to pay the money to get the dispute resolved quicker.” However, she points out that no one body has been appointed as the official recognised mediation training organisation for Irish solicitors and barrister, which is a problem. “That has to be sorted out.”
In addition to its lobbying work and its social function, the DSBA hosts several educational seminars a year and also runs a “consult a colleague” helpline for solicitors experiencing problems. These could range from work issues such as receiving a complaint from a member of the public to personal problems such as divorce, mental health issues or financial trouble. She believes solicitors are reluctant to contact the Law Society with these kinds of problems because of its (current) role as a regulator, and would have “more confidence” in the DSBA because it is purely a representative body.
During Kelly’s term as president, the association’s membership has topped 3,000. Indeed, it is in danger of becoming a victim of its own success – it has attracted so many members from outside of Dublin that its DSBA title is becoming something of a misnomer. “We probably will have to rebrand,” she says.