FIRM PROFILE: WOLFE & CO SOLICITORS:The history of west Cork practice Wolfe Co is entwined with many of Ireland's momentous events
ON MARKET Street in Ireland’s most southerly town, Skibbereen, there exists a unique treasure trove of records relating to the locale, dating back more than a century. Founded in 1894, Wolfe & Co is not only one of west Cork’s largest law firms, but also one of its oldest. As well as having an invaluable fund of local knowledge, its history is entwined with many of Ireland’s momentous events.
It all started in 1872 when Jasper Wolfe was born to a Methodist shopkeeper and his wife. After being awarded a gold medal and the Findlater Scholarship for obtaining first place in his final law exams, Jasper set up his own firm and is said to have soon gained “all west Cork for a client”.
He went on to hold a number of distinguished positions: he was crown solicitor in Cork city, was elected to the Dáil three times, and was the first Corkman to become president of the Law Society. Jasper also became a target for the IRA, but not only did he manage to survive being sentenced to death three times by the organisation, he went on to become a lawyer for the defence of republicans after the Civil War.
In 1976, Wolfe & Co joined forces with solicitor Liam M Collins, the nephew of Michael Collins. Liam’s daughter Helen Collins also joined the firm that year. She is now one of three senior partners and heads up the firm’s family law business, which was shortlisted in the “family law team” category of this year’s inaugural Irish Law Awards.
However her early days with the firm were a baptism of fire. At the age of 23 she was handed all of the district court work “literally overnight”. “To be honest I was like a lamb to the slaughter,” she recalls. There were no women working in the district court at that stage, and the men were seriously adversarial.
On days when she was due in court, she would wake up at four in the morning. “Every day it was like doing my Leaving Cert. It was a case of really having to battle it out. Those guys took no prisoners,” she says. She recalls that at Castletownbere district court, which was held in the bar of a hotel, there were only ever two crimes – drunk driving and assault. “Those were kind of wild days.”
It was a huge learning experience, not just legally but in life generally. About six months after starting in Skibbereen district court, she met with a client who was a witness in an assault case. In the witness box the man got a massive heart attack and died. It made a powerful impression on Helen Collins. “I realised nothing should ever be inside the court unless there is absolutely no choice whatsoever.”
She says she would never knock the adversarial legal system, and describes it as one of the cornerstones of our democracy, but she strongly believes that matters of family law do not belong in this system. “When you put the collapse of the family in the adversarial legal system, it becomes the destruction of the family,” she says. Over the years she has applied her energies to resolving conflicts out of court, and is a staunch advocate of collaborative practice, which provides an alternative to the traditional court-based approach. In fact she was one of the first Irish solicitors trained in this process.
She was also a founding member of the Association of Collaborative Practitioners and has delivered collaborative training for the Law Society.
However she has found that very often family law clients who initially have no intention of setting foot inside a court room end up going down that route because “they haven’t found a way of dealing with their anger and their fears”.
Family interference can also cause situations to escalate. While family members may be trying to help, often they can raise the individual’s level of fear unnecessarily, warning them to fight for their rights and advising them to go to “Rottweiler lawyers”.
She also has growing concerns about the power balance between parents. When she started out in the 1970s, there was very little redress for the woman and children, largely due to the fact that the traditional financial power base rested with the man. She believes significant inroads have been made, with women now enjoying greater financial independence.
“What’s worrying me now is that the traditional power base of the woman seeing herself as being in control of the children is very much emerging,” she says. She often has to help female clients understand that this traditional attitude can be destructive. “All the research shows that children need both parents. I find myself having to emphasise and re-emphasise this with my clients.
“In Ireland we have a lot of learning to do on emotional intelligence,” she says. “We’re really brilliant at dealing with death in Ireland. We understand bereavement.” However we lack understanding of the fact that marital breakdown is like a full-blown bereavement, she says. “I’m asking my clients to make huge decisions at a time when they’re least able to make decisions.”
For this reason, she insists that all family law clients involved in a serious dispute attend a counsellor. After all, she says, family law is only 10 per cent law, and 90 per cent emotion. “We have to find a way to deal with separation and divorce with compassion.”