Younger members of the legal profession often lack a sense of idealism or moral outrage, viewing their job as a "lifestyle choice" rather than a vocation, a conference of solicitors in Cork heard yesterday.
Master of the High Court Edmund Honohan said he had recently discussed the topic with a colleague, who maintained that the "want of outrage" was a generational issue.
"He said today's 20-year-olds and 30-year-olds are not that agitated about things. They seem to think things were always like they are now," he said.
"It isn't that they go to law for any sense of idealism or sense of a need to push the human rights agenda. They are not driven in that way. They are looking at it as a lifestyle choice."
Mr Honohan, who is not a judge but sits on the bench to hear discovery and other motions, said the Law Society and the Bar needed to consider this lack of idealism.
On the issue of solicitors overcharging abuse victims, Mr Honohan said outrage produced justice, and this particular cancer remained in the profession because of solicitors' and barristers' "want of outrage".
"If you are outraged on your client's behalf there is no way you will think about taking money from the client.
"You will say 'I have gone and got you money and I am delighted for you'. You do not backtrack and say: 'Having fought to the bitter end to get money I am now going to take some of it off you'."
The Law Society has received more than 80 complaints from abuse victims who claim they were charged even though their fees were paid in full by the Residential Institutions Redress Board. The society has vowed to eradicate the practice of double billing.
Meanwhile, Mr Honohan said the courts knew the discovery process was vulnerable to abuse by litigants in the event of wide-ranging general discovery being ordered.