THE fall out from a law clearing the way for solicitors to become judges in the superior courts is causing an unseemly stand off between two sections of the legal establishment.
The Law Society, which represents solicitors, is pleading not guilty to a charge by the barristers' ruling body, the Bar Council, that it has breached a trust between the two bodies in canvassing for the legislation, passed last December.
The Bar Council's case centres on its claim that the Law Society gave it an assurance in a prior meeting that it would not lobby for an amendment to the Courts and Court Officers Act allowing solicitors to become judges in the High Court and Supreme Court.
Previously, only barristers could sit on these benches. The original Bill had provided only for the appointment of solicitors as Circuit Court judges. But the final Act was amended to allow solicitors with four years service in the Circuit Court to be eligible to sit as a judge in the High or Supreme Court.
When the Bar Council learned that the Law Society had made representations to the Ministry of Justice and TDs in support of the amendment, it issued a bulletin to its members accusing the solicitors' body of a "breach of trust".
The Bar Council alleged that the Law Society's actions breached what it claims was an assurance not to canvass for the change in advance of a wide debate on the matter in public and within both professions.
In its defence, the Law Society has insisted that this allegation is "totally and utterly without foundation" as it had made known to the Bar Council its support for the appointment of solicitors on the benches of superior courts.
Writing in the current issue of its magazine, Gazette, the society's president, Mr Andrew F. Smyth, insisted that the Law Society never gave any assurance note to lobby for the amendment as this would have been "quite contrary to the wishes of the profession as a whole".
"The truth of the matter is that at the meeting in question it was, agreed that our differing views were accepted and that each party would, as it were, plough its own furrow without denigrating the other," he wrote.
Mr Smyth claimed his requests for meetings with Bar Council representatives on the matter have not been taken up. He pledged, however, to "continue to endeavour to minimise" the adverse effects the matter is having on relations between the two professions. He concluded with the hope that by the time the next issue of the Gazette is published, "the impasse will have been successfully overcome".