Law Society Gazette: Featuring ACL partner, Eleanor McKiernan

3 minute read

In The Law Society Gazette’s new ‘Spotlight’ series on the tireless work being done by The Law Society’s committees on behalf of solicitors across the country, Conveyancing Committee chair Eleanor McKiernan, a partner at our firm, opens the door to their significant role.

Committee Spotlight Article

The Conveyancing Committee is one of the Law Society’s longest serving and largest committees. Its 23 members represent large, small, and medium-sized practices from across the country, boasting an extensive skillset. Members of the 2023/24 committee hail from in-house to private-practice firms, all feeding in valuable expertise on conveyancing practice and procedures. Members are experts in residential and commercial conveyancing, as well as landlord and tenant matters.

The committee also deals with planning issues, insofar as these relate to conveyancing property transactions, and many other issues that arise during a conveyancing transaction.

Committee Chair: Eleanor McKiernan of Augustus Cullen Law

The chair of the Conveyancing Committee is Eleanor McKiernan. She was born in Cavan, moving to Wexford at a young age. Educated in Wexford and Dublin, she has spent the last 20 years living in Gorey with her family. She is a partner with Augustus Cullen Law and practises in both their Gorey and Wicklow offices.

The committee meets on the second Tuesday of each month (except for August).

So what’s its raison d’être?

Says Eleanor: “Number one is dealing with our members’ queries. Sometimes we can reply to them immediately by referring them to a practice note that has already issued. Much of the time, solicitor queries feed into what might be up for discussion on our monthly agenda. Solicitor queries, our discussions, and subsequent actions can feed into each other as a result. A new practice note might issue because we see something that’s happening in practice, or we’ll issue a note about it due to a query that might not have been dealt with before. Sometimes, we might take a look at our template documents and revise them to keep them up to date and relevant.”

Practice reform

The Conveyancing Committee issues many property documents, which are available to members at lawsociety.ie. “So, for example, there are the Conditions of Sale (2023 edition) for transactions commencing on or after 1 November. Also available through the website is the Requisitions on Title (2019 edition) and numerous other template declarations to assist practitioners – for example, family law declarations, to name a few.

Eleanor continues: “In the last number of years, we’ve seen a much stronger emphasis on practice reform. For instance, we’ve been looking at our conveyancing procedures and practice in the round to see how we can modernise them. How best to digitise and move with the times?” she asks. “A lot of our work is heavily involved in practice reform. So, if you take our recent Contract for Sale in 2023, we updated the terms to clarify that contracts can be digitally signed and exchanged.”