DRAFT. ON. 27216/80/49 27216/80/49
Colonial Office,
The Church House,
Great Smith Street,
3.W.1.
24th November, 1949.
mporary file).
47
Dear Griffin,
Many thanks for your letter of the 3rd November about vacancies on the Hong Kong Legal Staff,
· Needless to say we will do what we can for you, but we have not overcome our recruitment difficulties and you will, of course, realise that other colonies make equally insistent demands. I hope you will forgive me for taking this opportunity to say that Hong Kong's chance of having candidates allotted to them is likely to be prejudiced if they continue, as they have in the past, to require men with qualifications considerably higher than those demanded by other territories. I saw a vacancy form only a few days ago (it was not the first) on which it was stated that the person appointed to fill the vacancy for Legal Officer should have a University degree and five years' experience in actual practice as a solicitor. It was stated that the degree was not essential so perhaps we need not attach much importance to that requirement, but the same was not said about the five years, and presumably, therefore, that is insisted upon. The number of solicitor applicants with five years in practice since their admission is very small.
Please thank Hooton for his suggestion. It contains an idea worth thinking about, but I doubt whether it would work satisfactorily. In the first place the four years' ex- perience which was expected before the war er candidates for the Colonial Legal Service have been reduced to three years, and even the latter period is further reduced where a man has other practical experience, 9.8. of legal work in the army. I do not know whether Hooton's proposal is that the "young men" assistants should be appointed without having been in Chambers at all, but personally I should be reluctant to adopt such a suggestion. We have had several applications from men with no practical experience who, after interview, have spent a year or so in Chambers and then renewed their applications. They have without exception then told me that not only has their time in Chambers been invaluable, but that having had the experience they would not like to enter the Service without it. I well remember myself that it took me less than a fortnight in Chambers to discover how little I knew of the practical side of the legal profession and, indeed, to appoint a man as Crown Counsel or (above all) as magistrate when he has not seen the inside of Chambers and has no court experience, appears to me like engaging a chauffeur whose only knowledge of motor cars is what he has obtained from reading books.
With regard to the first paragraph of (c) of Hooton's note, I doubt whether the prospect of entering the Public Service for a few years and then returning to the Bar to start all over again would appeal to any man who has begun to acquire a practice, however modest.
owever
Finally, if we were to adopt Hooton's scheme, I fear
whatever it would be difficult in the case of any barrister, his age, to insist on actual practice before appointment.
The Honourable J.B. Griffin.
Me