Shatter criticised for further delays on legal services Bill

Minister for Justice Alan Shatter has been criticised for publishing his amendments to the long-delayed draft law on legal services just days before they are put to a vote at an Oireachtas committee.

The amendments to the Legal Services Regulation Bill, seen by The Irish Times, run to 65 pages and cover key changes to the procedures for dealing with complaints against lawyers.

The document is silent on Mr Shatter's controversial plan to allow for one-stop shops for solicitors, barristers and other professionals, such as accountants. The proposal, which has been strongly resisted by barristers, caused a row at Cabinet last month between Mr Shatter and Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore and is now being reviewed.

The Fine Gael-Labour coalition came under pressure from the EU-International Monetary Fund troika over the slow progress of the Bill, designed to reduce costs in the sector. The draft law was published in October 2011 amid strong criticism from lawyers’ groups and has been beset by delays ever since.

Fianna Fáil justice spokesman Niall Collins said today it was "not good enough" for Mr Shatter to publish a large volume of amendments just days before they are due to be scrutinised by the Oireachtas justice committee next Wednesday.

“I was promised in the Dáil by Alan Shatter before Christmas that they would be published before Christmas with supporting documentation,” Mr Collins said. “It’s not professional and it’s not how business should be done.”

The amendments set out the procedures to be used by the new Legal Services Regulatory Authority in dealing with complaints against solicitors and barristers as well as the sanctions it may impose.

The changes clarify plans for the proposed Disciplinary Tribunal. It will generally hold oral hearings in public, but the amendments allow for the public to be excluded where the tribunal is “satisfied that it is necessary to do so in the interests of justice.”

The document contains details of a levy that will be imposed on solicitors and barristers to fund the new regulatory regime, and puts greater emphasis on achieving informal solutions to consumer-type complaints. It also contains a large number of technical amendments.

The most striking omission, however, is the absence of any proposals on the proposed one-stop shops, which were a centrepiece of the original legislation. Mr Shatter has said multi-disciplinary practices, allowing solicitors and barristers to join together with other professionals in offering their services under one roof, would “modernise” the legal sector and create new opportunities for lawyers. But the Bar Council, which represents barristers, has argued that departing from the sole trader model would “radically undermine” the provision of justice.

Labour sources said last month that multidisciplinary practices were the only area where they had concerns and claimed potential conflicts of interest could arise if lawyers and accountants in the one office were advising the same clients. It was also claimed the practices could “lead to the consolidation of large legal firms to the detriment of smaller ones” as well as having a serious effect “over access to justice”.