Law Society to root out, eradicate double billing

Irish Independent

THE Law Society vowed last night to "root out and eradicate" the practice of double charging clients.

But while the society's president Owen Binchy admitted it had been "a very bad" week for members, he also told new solicitors receiving their parchments in Blackhall Place in Dublin the profession was in the vanguard in the 1990s in the fight "against huge odds" for justice for Irish people who had been sexually physically and psychologically brutalised in residential institutions.

"When Irish society was in denial, when the Government was hostile, when the media did not want to know, solicitors stood with these oppressed and exploited people and helped them achieve such measure of justice as they have now received," he said at the society's premises in Blackhall Place, Dublin.

It was "unbalanced and sad" that this had not been reported during the week.

The allegations of double charging had caused anger and revulsion to the overwhelming majority of solicitors, he said.

Posted by Kathy Shaw at 11:31 PM