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Be proud of your profession, SLA president urges

Being entrusted with the presidency of the Southern Law Association (SLA) is the highlight of solicitor Richard Hammond’s professional career, he told the body’s annual dinner on Friday 22 February.

He recalled that fewer than half a dozen of his Leaving Cert class ended up in UCC, and that a professional career in the law would not have been an obvious prediction when he was born to hard-working, rural stock.

In that respect, Richard said that, while the SLA had some significant VIP guests at the dinner, the most special guests were his parents PJ and Mary Hammond, for ensuring that education was always encouraged and promoted as a gateway for anything that their children might wish to achieve in life.

Concern

Reflecting on the law in 2019, he expressed a concern that the profession’s collective self-respect and self-worth was constantly being eroded.

“Interestingly, I think that this sets the scene for the cognitively dissonant position in which many in Irish society find themselves whereby they are quite sure that they trust and appreciate their own individual lawyer, while having a deep mistrust and often outright disdain for lawyers generally,” he pointed out.

There is no doubt that lawyers play a crucial and beneficial role in our country, and have always so done, he said.

Under siege

“The environment in which we operate is constantly evolving and, on some days, it would be understandable to think that we, as a profession, are under siege and, indeed, that the very concept of being a ‘professional’ is being undermined and diluted. That happens from these external agendas, but also from within.

“Increasingly, as city firms get larger and provincial firms get smaller, there is a tangible undercurrent of [a] ‘them and us’ emerging in both sectors,” he said.

The SLA President added that many of the trainees he meets view themselves as budding business employees, rather than nascent professionals working in a business.

“Increasingly, we see our own sense of being professionals morphed into being frazzled, harried processors of our client’s demands,” he said.

He recalled as a young school-leaver being told that there was little future in the profession, yet he has seen the numbers practising boom in the years since then.

Hammond reflected on the immense talent within the legal profession, with practitioners constantly innovating and developing their offerings.

Lawyers play a key role in Ireland being the progressive, open, commercially attractive country that it is today, he said.

“Undoubtedly, the Southern Law Association, the other bar associations, and the Law Society of Ireland work hard to ensure that there is a strong counter-point advanced against any negativity about our profession,” he stated.

He encouraged pride in the profession, saying that each practitioner had a part to play.

“We have helped develop sophisticated legal and political systems to promote a just and prosperous society.  We guarantee that the State is held to account when necessary.

“We ensure that, irrespective of your circumstances in life, your interest can be protected to the fullest extent of the law, and if the law does not yet protect you, we will work to make sure that the law evolves to incorporate your protection,” he said.

Concluding, he reminded the SLA that lawyers are professionals, not processors, and they should never, ever be slow to defend the profession.