One of the most important functions we do is maintain a register of all New Zealand practising lawyers. This is available on our website alongside a second more consumer facing tool designed to connect people with a lawyer best placed to help them.
There are two ways people can find a lawyer on our website. The first is by using the ‘Registry Lookup’ search on our homepage. This tool allows people to search for a lawyer by name, using either their first name or surname.
The second way is through our Get Legal Help function. This allows users to search for a lawyer by location, practise area and languages spoken. This tool only lists lawyers who can be engaged by the public, so in-house lawyers do not appear in it.
The categories that a lawyer appears under in our ‘Get Legal Help’ function are drawn from the information provided by lawyers in their Registry record. The location lawyers are found under corresponds to their post code. For example, a lawyer who lists their practise area as Employment, an address in Waikato and their languages spoken as Māori will appear in any search using those details.
Whilst it’s optional to record information about practising areas and languages there’s a real benefit for lawyers in doing so.
The tool holds information about 10,000 lawyers. Since we launched our new website in August last year the ‘Get Legal Help’ search has been accessed more than 36,000 times. It has helped the public find more than 4,000 lawyers.
There are further search categories that we plan to introduce to the search function in the future, such as searching by preferred name and by firm.
But for now, when renewing a practising certificate, we’re encouraging lawyers, especially those who aren’t in-house, to check their information is correct and if there is more information that can be supplied to add that. Doing this will help create opportunities for your business.
Log in to Registry using your User ID (the six-digit number including any leading zeros noted on your practising certificate), and password.
If you don’t know your password, use the “Forgot password?” link to send an email to your email address.
Once you’ve logged in to Registry, go to the ‘Personal Details’ screen to update:
Go to the ‘Statistics’ screen in Registry to update:
Make sure you tick the box at the top to show this information on the public register. This will help people find you on our website.
You may also need to:
These updates will require you to complete a form.
If you’re having trouble updating your information in Registry or need further help and support check out the answers to our FAQs for renewing your practising certificate.
Please contact us if you need further help and support. Email registry@lawsociety.org.nz or call 0800 22 30 30.