Class bias in law challenged by new education project

Every Saturday for the past four months a score of teenagers from some of Dublin’s most disadvantaged neighbourhoods have been meeting to discuss the law.

Future Voices Ireland is a new project, run voluntarily by legal professionals, seeking to build interest in the field among young people who wouldn’t typically pursue legal careers.

Over the course of the six-month programme, students from DEIS (Delivering Equality of Opportunity In Schools) catchment areas debate topical human rights issues and discuss technical details of the Irish legal system.

Director Mairéad Moore says the project, running since January, is the start of a “long-term commitment” to children from disadvantaged areas, to give them “the confidence and self-esteem” to enter higher education.

Moore, a human rights lawyer from Derry, points out that many of the children involved don’t have academic role models who have gone through third level education and their experience of the law would have been one of isolation. “It didn’t represent them”.

As well as attempting to bring about grassroots change, the project raises questions about an apparent lack of diversity within the ranks of legal professionals. There is an argument that barristers and solicitors are drawn predominantly from higher socio-economic backgrounds and that this could have a bearing on the administration of justice.

But, with a dearth of academic research, the question of class-bias in the Irish legal system is difficult to address satisfactorily. "There is an assumption around this which I think probably has quite a good foundation but as an academic it's something that I think needs some research," says Prof Colin Scott, dean of law at UCD.

A wider range of experiences and backgrounds would give the legal system “a better capacity for reflecting society as a whole”, he says, and there would be “considerable merit” in challenging the perception that access to the legal system is quite narrow.

To John Lonergan, the former governor of Mountjoy Prison, the issue is more clear-cut.

“There is no such thing as equality in Ireland and there is nowhere that applies more than in the legal profession.” It’s no secret the vast majority of lawyers come from “middle to upper class Ireland”, and he argues that legal professionals’ backgrounds influence their attitudes. “Common sense would tell you it has to.”

He says the imbalance impacts negatively on people from working class areas, and points to research from his time at Mountjoy which showed the majority of the prison's inmates came from six of Dublin's poorest areas. Many young people in disadvantaged areas lack the education to engage with the legal system, he says, and so feel alienated and bewildered by a system which they have come to regard as antagonistic.

Dissenting voice
Tony McGillicuddy, a practising barrister, agrees that greater legal education is required but he rejects the argument that a particular social group dominates the legal system.

“I really think that the perception of the barrister as the Dublin 4-educated, middle-aged man . . . is totally incorrect and is very unfair to the wealth of people from different backgrounds who are in the job now,” he says.

McGillicuddy, the son of a Kerry County Council machinery operator, says the introduction of free third level education opened the legal profession to a broader section of society. Furthermore, he says, the Bar Council's subsidised subscription rates for young barristers compare favourably to other countries.

He argues the accessibility of the system in Ireland is borne out by the growing membership of the Law Library. When he joined nine years ago there were about 1,500 members, now there are 2,300 barristers.

Despite this, he admits there is still a perception of the legal profession as being a closed shop, which he says needs to be challenged.

“It comes down to an education issue and it comes down to, I suppose, breaking through the myths that are there about the profession so that people actually see it is something that they can attain.”

Irish universities have made some progress in this area in recent years. Most of them have put access schemes in place to encourage more applications from poor and working class areas, but while uptake is improving it remains quite low.

According to Prof Scott about 5 per cent of UCD law students now come in through an “entry pathway” scheme which offers a reduced Leaving Cert points threshold for students from poorer areas.

“One reason why it’s not as good as it could be is that it’s difficult to reach students from disadvantaged backgrounds,” he says. “It’s also sometimes difficult for those [students] to have the confidence to apply to us.”

For Mairéad Moore, instilling young people with this confidence forms the “central premise of our project”. The Saturday session of Future Voices Ireland will continue until June, after which she wants to see the students begin work placements in law firms and NGOs.

And she believes they’re well able for it, having made impressive strides since January.

“The transformation in these kids is just unbelievable,” she says. “On the first day they were really nervous and shy but now they’re just amazing; they’re debating, having these high class debates – sometimes you forget you’re debating with teenagers, you feel like you’re debating with law graduates.”

futurevoicesireland.org