Law Society obstacle

lisnageragh

Hi all,

I was just looking for any advice from anyone who can help.

I am thinking of returning to Education and undertaking a undergraduate course in law.

My goal is to become a full time solicitor.

However on reading up on the Law Society website it states that one of the conditions on becomming a solicitor would be to undertake two Irish Examinations.

Now I was educated in the UK and only came home in the past 4 years, so my Irish is non-existent!

So my question is, is there any way I can avoid these examinations?

Whilst I love and appreciate the Irish Language, I really cant see my learning the language from scratch at the age of 35!

I dont plan to practise in Irish, so I would have no need to learn the language, and because I have a english accent this would only burden my chances of trying to speak the language.

It would seem a bit unfair that I would be forced to try and learn the language, and if this was the case can anyone say if it would be easy enough to learn?

Many Thanks for any advice!

dumbyearbook

You have to pass the Irish exams. There are lots of people who did not study it in school who sit it so why not you!

Blush_01

Just on the English accent point, as unfortunately I don't know anything about the rest of it. IF you were to learn to speak Irish, you'd more than likely speak it with an Irish accent, as you'd learn it that way. Many people I knew in Irish college spoke with English accents, but I didn't find that out until after we had left and were allowed to speak English again.

It may have something to do with the cases you'd receive rather than the way you intend to practice. Likewise, as an undergraduate you'd have lots of time to learn to speak Irish. Besides, if you rang the Law Society office they'd probably have the best idea of whether you could get an exemption or not - many people with severe dyslexia don't learn Irish and I'm sure that couldn't be held against them if they chose to study law, so there must be some exemptions. Your education outside of Ireland would probably fall under those exemptions - but the Law Society themselves would be the most likely source of a response.

lisnageragh

Hi and thanks for the quick replies!

I have no problem learning Irish and would love to do so.

I am just wondering what the chances are of learning a language from scratch to pass two law society examinations.

I thought that maybe the law society would change the requirements like the Gardai have considering that Irish has now been relegated to the 4th Mostly spoken language behind, English, Chinese and Polish.

But I am up for the challenge!

Nike_Dude

But I am up for the challenge!

You are obviously fairly determined to succeed, so I wouldnt say the Irish exam will be too difficult even with having to pick it up from scratch. Griffith College run a course which would be more than adequate, as the exam is very easy (well the first one anyway, the second is a little more difficult).

dumbyearbook

Blush_01 wrote:

Just on the English accent point, as unfortunately I don't know anything about the rest of it. IF you were to learn to speak Irish, you'd more than likely speak it with an Irish accent, as you'd learn it that way. Many people I knew in Irish college spoke with English accents, but I didn't find that out until after we had left and were allowed to speak English again.

It may have something to do with the cases you'd receive rather than the way you intend to practice. Likewise, as an undergraduate you'd have lots of time to learn to speak Irish. Besides, if you rang the Law Society office they'd probably have the best idea of whether you could get an exemption or not - many people with severe dyslexia don't learn Irish and I'm sure that couldn't be held against them if they chose to study law, so there must be some exemptions. Your education outside of Ireland would probably fall under those exemptions - but the Law Society themselves would be the most likely source of a response.

There are'nt any excemptions, Guards need Irish too. See the Law is of Ireland and one of the national languages is Irish.

Call the law society OP as no one here is offering any useful advice and is guessing afaik there are no excemptions anyway, PS if you intend on passing all the exmas the Irish one should be the least of your worries!

dK1NG

No exemptions. End of!


But dont worry about it! It is an absolute piece of p*ss. (For the record I scraped a D3 in pass Irish in the leaving cert)

I went into the first Irish exma and thought the examiner was asking me about my job , when all she asked was my "uimhir" - exam no.:eek:

Despite that, I still passed it without any bother!

All it involves is learning off a passage to translate, doing a book review (kindly supplied by those people in GCD, even tho i didnt do their course) and the oral - which they try their best to pass you!

A friend of mine, also from England, passed it without any bothers, so stop fretting about it!

dats_right

Trust me, there are far bigger obstacles you will face on your journey to becoming a solicitor than the Irish exams, not least Fe-1's and training contracts. As somebody who has overcome most of them and is a trainee solicitor myself, I can tell youf or certain that these Irish exams are almost a joke.

Unfortunately, there is no way around them if you want to train in this jurisdiction as the Solicitors Acts make them obligatory for all apprentices without exception. That said there are numerous Nigerians, Chinese, British, Americans, etc who have passed said exams with minimum of effort and without a word of Gaeilge.

The other option would be to train in England/Wales where immediately upon entry to the roll you would be entitled to be admitted in this jurisdiction without the need to do either the Irish exams or indeed the Qualified Lawyer's Transfer Test.

In relation to the exam itself, it really is a case of learning to write verbatim an A4 page passage of Irish, I hadn't even a clue what I was writing about nor did I particularly care, it was simply a matter of learning the passage as thought by one of the commercial law soc Irish prep courses. The other aspect of the exam was a short oral exam. A few short questions over 30 seconds, such as your name, where you are from, etc. Again thought by the course providers.

There is almost a 0% failure rate. My advice don't worry about the exam, but
if you don't want to take any chances prior to committing all the time and effort to your law studies you can always sit the first irish exam before embarking on your studies. That way you can ease the worries and concern yourself more with the long road ahead. Here is a link to law soc Irish exam prep courses:

http://www.lawsociety.ie/documents/education/hbs/irishgrinds.pdf