A private third-level college and some of its students have taken a High Court challenge to the Law Society's refusal to grant them certain examination exemptions. These exemptions were available to students from other Irish colleges.
Portobello College, Dublin, and students who graduated from there with an LLB degree in Irish law in 1995 claim the society has unfairly discriminated against them. It appeared that because their degree was accredited by the University of Wales, they were precluded from availing of the examination exemptions, Mr John Gordon SC said.
He was opening proceedings taken by the University of Wales, Cardiff; Mr Raymond Kearns, trading as Portobello College, and up to 12 student plaintiffs against the Law Society and the State.
In the early 1990s the Law Society had a system where students who graduated with law degrees from Irish universities were automatically exempt from the first part of the society's two-part final examinations.
Portobello College had sought to have the same exemptions.
However, in 1994 Queen's University Belfast and some of its students challenged the society's refusal to grant them exemptions and won the case.
Mr Gordon said the society decided to abolish the examination exemptions altogether.
But, he said, the Portobello students were refused exemptions which had led to the present case.