A history of Irish barristers finds pattern of adaptation

Barristers in Ireland ­– An Evolving Profession since 1921, by Dr Niamh Howlin of UCD, has been published by Four Courts Press (12 October) and covers the barristers’ profession in a period of vast social and cultural change in Ireland. The volume was launched by the Attorney General Rossa Fanning SC at the Distillery Building on 12 October.

Dr Niamh Howlin is an associate professor at the UCD Sutherland School of Law and a legal historian who has previously written about the evolution of juries in Ireland. Dr Howlin conducted interviews with numerous practising barristers, as well as trawling the National Archives and Bar Council meetings minutes, for nuggets of information.

She also sourced files from the Department of the Taoiseach, Department of Foreign Affairs, and the office of the Attorney General.

“I really wanted to get the perspective of people who had been in practice and to hear those first-person experiences, so I interviewed 29 people who've been in practice at the Bar during the 20^th century,” she said.

Dr Howlin’s research led her to the conclusion that there is no such thing as a ‘typical barrister’.

Cordial relations

The Incorporated Law Society (as it was then) and the Bar Council had cordial relations most of the time, she found.

“They collaborated in different ways. Until the late 1960s and the purchase of Blackhall Place, the solicitor-profession premises was in the Four Courts complex,” she said.

“Even that physical proximity meant that relationships were pretty good, and people worked in close co-operation if there were areas of mutual interest,” Dr Howlin said.

The two branches of the legal profession, together, hosted visiting bars and judges and made various submissions to Government officials.

“They had a lot to say about the redesign of the courts system in the 1920s,” she adds.

Fee note tensions

Tensions sometimes arose about fee notes, but mostly matters stayed on an even keel, she found.

The Bar changed significantly in the period under examination, which is also true of the solicitors’ profession in the 20^th century.

“The make-up of the profession changed and it really diversified. We had a lot more women and people from different backgrounds. Technology had a huge impact on legal practice, with the use of databases and other tools for legal research,” said Dr Howlin.

The oversight environment also began to change by the late 1990s, with increasing pressure from Government to have external regulation of the legal profession.

The question of legal partnerships between barristers and solicitors was raised from the 1970s onwards.

“The only constant in the legal profession has been change,” Dr Howlin comments.

“There's constant change, there's always some new change about to happen – that people either do or don't want to embrace,” she said.

“There's been a lot of incremental change and evolution,” she added. “If you compare the Bar in the late 1990s to the Bar in the 1920s, they adapted hugely,” she noted.

Taking silk

Dr Howlin found a very interesting file in the National Archives about barrister applications to take silk.

“These days, to become a senior counsel is a very formal process, and there are very clear requirements and benchmarks for applicants to reach.

“In the mid-20^th century, there were no requirements laid down. It was very unclear what applicants needed to do.

“The application letters are, for the most part, really short and also quite vague as to why people think that they should be granted silk – there’s no CV attached, or list of cases,” Dr Howlin said.

“In the past, if you were relatively senior at the Bar and you wanted to take silk, the Chief Justice and the Attorney General probably knew who you were, and knew your reputation.

“The Bar is so much bigger now – there are over 2,000 barristers – so those kinds of personal connections don't exist.”

With the centenary of women entering the legal profession being celebrated this year, Dr Howlin found that the first women barristers remained very much a minority in the profession, for quite some time.

“Once the legal professions opened, certainly at the Bar, there wasn’t really a huge rush of women. That can be overlooked, that not very many came after them. It would have been quite a lonely experience,” she said.

“The numbers stayed very low until the 1970s, when there was a lot of social change,” she added.

Dr Howlin found that those women who joined the Bar didn’t always stay in practice for various reasons, such as a wish for greater job security or a more congenial work-life balance.

Demanding job

“It was a very demanding job to be in; barristers would come in and spend their day between the Law Library and court, and then go home and do all their paperwork and case preparation,” she said.

The work week ran as standard to 60, 70 or even 80 hours a week.

“The flip side of that was that people really appreciated the long vacations – albeit unfortunately unpaid,” she said.

Some interviewees made a very good living at the Bar and were very happy with the life they had as a result. “But even the most successful talked about the stress of never really knowing that the good times would continue.”

Even those getting good cases and fees never felt confident that they would be in the same position the following month or year.

Unpaid fees

Many also spoke of unpaid fees and taking cases, knowing that they would never be paid.

“Some said that they just weren’t very good at keeping up with the paperwork. In London chambers, barristers have a clerk to look after the fee notes and the business side of the practice.

“Obviously, here, we don't have a chambers system, so people have to run their whole practice, single-handedly,” Dr Howlin said.

Barristers in Ireland, by Dr Niamh Howlin, was published on 12 October by Four Courts Press. The 464-page hardback edition, including 32 pages of colour illustrations, is available in selected bookshops, price €55.