Access to other decisions

Standards Committees are administered by the New Zealand Law Society. The Society does not have responsibility for decisions made by other bodies on complaints against lawyers, and publication of these is therefore outside the Society's control. The following brief guide shows where further decisions may be found:

Any decision of a standards committee can be appealed to the Legal Complaints Review Officer (LCRO). The full decisions of the LCRO are available at http://www.justice.govt.nz/tribunals/legal-complaints-review-officer/decisions-1/2010-decisions. The names and identifying details of the parties in those decisions have been changed unless an order for the publication of the identity of the parties involved has been made.

In serious complaints a Standards Committee may resolve to refer a matter to the New Zealand Lawyers and Conveyancers Disciplinary Tribunal. Decisions of that Tribunal, which came into being on 1 August 2008, are available on the Tribunal's own website, http://www.justice.govt.nz/tribunals/lawyers-and-conveyancers-disciplinary-tribunal.

The Law Society has published its own summaries of some decisions of the Tribunal. These are available here. Earlier decisions of the New Zealand Law Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal, which went out of existence on 1 February 2009, are available on request from the New Zealand Law Society, subject to any suppression orders.

To check whether a lawyer has a current practising certificate search the Register of Lawyers. 

© New Zealand Law Society 2008