LAW: Thirty-two men, dressed in suits, stare out at the reader. It is a striking photograph of the Council of the Law Society in 1951, spread across two full pages of this book. Most of the men are seated, and they exude professional confidence.
It may have been this very image that drove Dr Mary Redmond to invoke Marx at the outset of her article on the emergence of women in the solicitors' profession in Ireland. She quotes Groucho: "I would love to offer you my seat, Lady, except I am sitting in it myself".
Today, Elma Lynch is president of the Law Society of Ireland. Things have changed, slowly. There are now six women on the Council of the Law Society (and 25 men).
The editors of this book remind us that, in earlier days, medicine men held sway. Then came the clergy's dominance. Today, law and lawyers have a significant say in the affairs of state. The editors proclaim that "the Irish solicitor of today is a successor of the filí (poet) of pre-Norman Ireland". Some readers may retort that poets were never so well paid . However, in his essay on prevailing professional issues, Eamonn G. Hall is at pains to explain why many solicitors have long felt financially undervalued. Dr Hall is the chief legal officer of Eircom and his account of the profession's concerns in the modern era is both lucid and measured.
Dr Hall's co-editor is Daire Hogan, a partner in the solicitors' firm of McCann Fitzgerald and a former president of the Irish Legal History Society. Hogan is the author of an earlier account of the legal profession in Ireland, 1789-1922. Here, he returns to that theme with three chapters which span the development of the Law Society from its foundation until 1960. Along with the current president of the Irish Legal History Society, Professor W.N. Osborough of UCD, Hogan has played an important role in helping to lay the foundations for further and long overdue studies of the Irish legal body.
In the years following the creation of this state, lawyers neglected their history. Indeed, in his essays on legal education and legal publishing, John Buckley, a former judge of the Circuit Court, recalls how in the 1950s and 1960s Irish law students and lawyers were virtually bereft of any books on Irish law. For half a century, independent Ireland lacked the confidence and wealth to publish its own legal tracts.
The birth of the Free State had a very direct impact on the Law Society itself. During the Civil War, its premises behind the Four Courts were badly damaged and its library destroyed. The solicitors rebuilt and then, in 1978, moved to an elegant building in Blackhall Place. Their present librarian, Margaret Byrne, explains in her account of the solicitors' library how 15 books that were out on loan in 1922 are now shelved together as a tribute to their survival.
The Law Society's director-general, Ken Murphy, gives an overview of current professional developments. He rejoices in the fact that the law has been changed following "literally decades of campaigning by the Law Society" for the right of practising solicitors to be appointed judges of the High Court. Only last July, Justice Michael Peart became the first such solicitor to take his seat there. Pictured in wig and gown, he certainly looks as well as any barrister.
This volume also includes a photograph of Charles Haughey pulling a string. That was in 1991, when he visited the Law Society to unveil a statue of Stephen Trotter, sometime judge of the prerogative court. Haughey has had a long association with the legal profession, in one capacity or another.
When launching this book, the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, noted that three solicitors sit in his Cabinet. These are Dermot Ahern, Brian Cowen and John O'Donoghue. Their photographs are included in the volume, too, perhaps by way of a "thank you". Not every trade or profession is so fortunate in having its own members in a position to steer through favourable legislation.
Anyone looking for a sharply critical perspective on lawyers will be disappointed by this book. Its portrait of the profession is quite a flattering one. As the editors themselves remark, there are many other aspects of the profession which might merit a wider study. However, the volume is a valuable reference point for those who undertake such studies. Meanwhile, no Irish lawyer should be without it.
Colum Kenny is a senior lecturer in communications at Dublin City University, and a barrister. His latest book, King's Inns and the Battle of the Books 1972: Cultural Controversy at a Dublin Library, was published last year.
Colum Kenny