STATUS OF SOLICITORS' CLERKS

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1889, 18 October 1913, Page 13

STATUS OF SOLICITORS' CLERKS

Mr. A. Gray writes with reference to the report in yesterday's Dominion - of tho enso of A. D. Lynch, in tho Full Court:— "What I said was in reply to_Mr. Skerrett's observation that a section of tho Law Practitioners' Act provided _ that tho barristers and solicitors residing and practising in a district could constitute a Law Society, and that it would probably bo found that a considerable number of the members of tho Law Societies wero solicitors employed in offices a recognition, therefore, of their status as 'practising* solicitors. I said tho fact of somo of them having been admitted as members of a Law Society did not malce them 'practising' solicitors; and in fact, in somo socictirs, as to one of which (Wollington) I could sneak from personal knowledge, tho president had formally discouraged ("set their faces Against," I think wna my expression) tho admission of clerksolicitors as members, tho reason being that their being members of tho snmo body as their emploj-crs might be subversive of discipline, also that it mas hardly fitting to the dignity of n Law Society that its affa.rs might possibly bo controlled by clerks."