REMARKS BY PRESIDENT MCALEESE AT A DINNER TO MARK THE 30TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE IPLS QUEENS UNIVERSITY
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT MCALEESE AT A DINNER TO MARK THE 30TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE INSTITUTE OF PROFESSIONAL LEGAL STUDIES
I am delighted to be back here, among old friends, to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of the establishment of the Institute of Professional Legal Studies. Standing as I do between so many hungry lawyers and their dinner, I feel slightly like the speaker who was asked to address a policeman’s ball who, when he asked the organiser how long he should speak for, was gently told that he could speak for as long as he wished, but that the bar would remain closed until he had finished ... and that the audience was all armed.
But we all know that what brings us here is a celebration of the Institute’s first thirty years, that it is important that we mark this milestone and important too that we acknowledge with gratitude how much it has contributed to the development of the legal profession in Northern Ireland and indeed to professional legal education far beyond Northern Ireland.
I have been attending Institute events since 1987 but this one has a very special feel to it, not least because of the auspicious political backdrop which allows us to hope that we have arrived at last at a complete end to the years of conflict which brought so much misery to so many doors, not least to the doors of the North’s judges and many of its lawyers. Their work made them targets, their courageous commitment made them quiet, unassuming heroes. All those tensions were woven into the life and times through which the Institute came into being, grew and eventually flourished, establishing itself as a centre of excellence in professional formation and a centre of pioneering imagination for legal education and training.
If the Institute grew up and through the troubles, it also grew up and through the first decades of membership of the European Union and the avalanche of legal consequences that flowed from membership. Those consequences seemed at first to be obscure to legal practitioners. I well remember one of the most eminent EU Commission civil servants being asked in a Belfast public forum, in all seriousness by a senior solicitor, could he think of one single effect the EU might have on his clientele which consisted mainly of farmers. We eventually prevailed upon the Commission representative to stop after thirty brilliantly articulated reasons had been offered without taking breath. The legal cultures of all member states including legal academic and professional education have all been radically altered in the intervening decades and it has been quite a task to prepare each new generation of lawyers for this rather heady and turbulent, altered world.
Today the Institute’s graduates, once qualified, have virtually seamless access to practice in the Republic and England or Wales and the still modest development of mutual recognition of qualifications throughout the European Union holds out intriguing prospects for the future. What is more, their professional formation now takes place in very elegant surroundings, a far cry from the bad old days of the prefab in the car park and the mushrooms growing up the walls.
The many changes have been championed and nurtured by a team of dedicated enthusiasts, committed to a culture of excellence, foremost among them, the University, the Inn of Court and Bar Council of Northern Ireland, the Law Society of Northern Ireland and the Council of Legal Education. From its earliest Institute Directors, Council Chairmen and members, there has come a distillation of wisdom and a focus of effort which has made the Institute a place to be very proud of. Foremost among those champions has been the current and long-serving, Chairman, Lord Justice Anthony Campbell. He has been wise, far-seeing, encouraging and a formidable advocate at difficult junctures.
For the past decade, the Institute has shone under the brilliant leadership of its current Director, Anne Fenton, though Anne’s connection with the Institute as a lecturer, senior lecturer and assistant director spans a large part of the thirty years. But since she is one of my very best friends I have no intention of spelling out exactly how big a part. She has taken its name and its students all over the world to success after success in international competitions showcasing Northern Ireland’s professional legal formation and earning it the international respect it deserves. She has a terrific team of professional legal educators and expert support staff, among them Alan Gallagher who has the distinction of being the only member of staff to have served the full thirty year sentence without remission and Pauline Rodway, who as the IPLS main administrator, has been sorting the most complex of things there for over a quarter of a century and God knows the admissions procedure has the distinction of being both the most transparent and the most complex of things.
It is in the end though the Institute’s graduates who are its prime ambassadors. Their performance and their values as young lawyers are the measures against which the Institute will always be judged and the scrutiny is not just by employers and clients or in casual anecdotes. There is always another Armitage or Bromley committee waiting to analyse and to review. I know they are at it again and am I glad I am in Áras an Uachtaráin.
The proper training of lawyers is a topic inseparable from the rule of law and it is essential to the good rule of good law. What happens in the Institute matters to the public and has consequences for the public. This society has been very well served by the Institute these past three decades, and as a whole new landscape of hope and opportunity opens up in Northern Ireland it will inevitably bring significant changes to the legal profession. We are entitled to believe that lawyers will play a considerable role in shifting the economy from its high dependence on the public sector, helping to reconnect Northern Ireland with its historic roots as Ireland’s major engine of entrepreneurial success and meeting what I hope will be increased demand for corporate, commercial and property legal services.
These are new times, much talked of, much dreamt of but now here and needing heads and hands to make the very most of their potential. A new culture of collegiality is growing on the North-South axis. It isn’t particularly new to lawyers however, for theirs has always been a strong cross-border bond. Now, though, present and future relationships are increasingly being freed from the shackles of the past and are being infused with a very radical and daring new spirit. I think that is where the Institute came in thirty years ago. So we can be sure the best is yet to come.