GSBA Posts

16 July 2015

Letter received by colleagues from Galway County Council

Dear colleagues

It has come to the attention of the GSBA that Galway County Council is writing to a considerable number of our colleagues in respect of outstanding liabilities owed to the County Council. Please see a copy of such a letter attached here doc01902020150716124331

It purports to tell solicitors what is “best conveyancing practice”. This is completely unacceptable and is another example of how our profession seems to be regarded as being liable for everything and appreciated for nothing. We, as a profession, seem to be the unpaid debt collectors for various state agencies while at the same time our own fees are the subject of continuous criticism from the very same state agencies.

I have furnished a copy of the letter to the Law society and I have sent the following reply to the County Council

“Dear Sirs,

We are in receipt of your letter dated the 06th July 2015 which you have sent to certain members of the Galway Solicitors Bar Association (see copy enclosed).

Both the GSBA and its members find your letter to say the least offensive, in that it purports to instruct Solicitors who are officers of the Court as to how they should conduct their affairs. It never has been and it never will be your place to dictate how a Solicitor should conduct their business.

Solicitors as a profession and as officers of the Court are guided only by the law, the Courts and the Law Society as to how they conduct their business and as to what is good conveyancing practice. For you to assume that you have a more specialist knowledge of conveyancing than Solicitors is offensive to our profession and is the height of arrogance.

I must call upon you on behalf of the Bar Association and our colleagues to withdraw these offensive and defamatory statements and I call upon you now to write out to all of our colleagues to whom you have furnished your letter to, apologising for the offence caused.

We await hearing from you.

Yours faithfully,
________________
James Seymour
President
Galway Solicitors Bar Association”