The phrase "high-flying lawyer" means something different in relation to the new President of the Law Society, Claremorris-based Ward McEllin. McEllin has a full pilot's licence, and is part owner of a small plane, which he occasionally uses to get to court and to Dublin. Mayo solicitors are obviously a politically astute lot - McEllin is the second society president in three years and the third in nine, from the county. Previous incumbents were Pat O'Connor and Adrian Burke.
Next year's president will be Dublin solicitor Elma Lynch, the new senior vice-president. Moya Quinlan was the first and only woman to hold the post when she took over in 1980. Unlike their legal colleagues at the Bar Council, where a new chairman is elected a mere couple of days before taking office, the Law Society give their office holders a year to ease themselves in. Relations between the two branches were very frosty indeed a few years ago, but the barristers have now accepted, more or less, that solicitors will be eligible to sit on the High and Supreme Court benches under the new courts legislation which is awaited daily from solicitor, the Minister for Justice John O'Donoghue. It is up to McEllin and new Bar Council chairman Rory Brady to hold the peace once the bill appears.