Since October 2019, the Law Society don’t investigate complaints against solicitors, there is an independent body to do just that. It took 100 years or so, but eventually it happened. However that’s really just the tip of the iceberg. They really only investigate the minor stuff and complaints which the Law Society and Bar Council can easily handle.
The Law Society are adept at ensuring they can defend fees of 200, 300 or more per hour plus VAT, and very few solicitors are actually struck off – about 6 to 10 each year which is around 0.5%. The Law Society controls what really matters, and that is the Law Reform Commission. Of course the name is a misnomer – it should really be called the no-law-reform commission.
Let’s say you are the Petrol Station Society of Ireland. You implement a system which ensures that there can only be a certain number of petrol stations (by ensuring there are only a set amount of licenses or suitable candidates available – and you decide what’s suitable).
You provide guidelines for how the system works, and your members draft the laws. Your members charge motorists for the amount of time they spend on the forecourt – not for the fuel they receive.
So if it takes ten hours to receive fuel, then so be it. Would you want to change the system? I don’t think so.
Welcome to the reality of the legal system in Ireland. Let’s say you have all the documents available, have submitted everything asked of you in court. Your ex however decides that it is better for her to wait another year or so for the divorce because you might move on with your life. You might get a payrise and so can afford to pay more maintenance. Yes I know you separated 4 years ago, but until you are divorced you are fair game (and actually in Ireland, even after you are divorced).
So your ex, and the entire legal team on both sides, has every incentive to prolong the case as long as possible.
The system is intentionally incompetent* so as to pretend to be inefficient with plausible deniability.
A kind of monetary schadenfreude.
Coffee?
*Even in Ireland this level of incompetence while not unheard of, is unusual. Yes, older readers may point to the infamous Red Cow Roundabout, and claim that we have form when it comes to this level of ineptitude, but we’re getting into a kind of Darwin Vs Texas debate. It is abundantly clear that even the most brilliant mind, with many years of preparation and practice, would struggle to conceal this level of Kafkaesque bungling and claim they knew what they were doing.