Law education responding to technology

The days of a lawyer being surrounded by a tide of paper case files have been receding as practising law modernises and cements its foot firmly in the digital 21st Century. What the legal sector is going through perhaps echoes in similarity that of the media profession which has had to…

From the Law Society

Keeping up with technologyLast week we heard that New Zealanders are among the highest users of broadband for entertainment in the world. I am not sure whether this is necessarily an accolade. But it certainly indicates a trend. It is no longer optional for lawyers to keep up with changes in…

Our Profession, Our People

Justice Dame Ellen France has been appointed a Judge of the Supreme Court. Justice France graduated from Auckland University in 1981 and completed her Masters at Queen’s University in Ontario in 1983. After working at the Department of Justice, she joined Crown Law in 1992 and was appointed team leader…

Finding constructive solutions benefitting both sides

Young property lawyer Louise Brazier finds the practice has given her fascinating insights into how people use land in such different ways and the important relationship people have with land. “In law school, I found it was often easy to get caught up in the abstract – applying legal principles to…

Criminal barrister helps develop new app

Auckland criminal barrister Emma Priest has helped develop a practice management app specifically for barristers. It began when she went out as a barrister earlier this year, re-establishing Blackstone Chambers in Wyndham Street together with a number of other colleagues. “One of my key concerns was what document and practice management system…

OWLS celebrating 30th anniversary

The Otago Women Lawyers’ Society, OWLS, will celebrate 30 successful years since it was founded with a black tie gala dinner in Dunedin on 14 October. The dinner will be held at Toitū Otago Settlers Museum. Dame Silvia Cartwright, former Governor-General of New Zealand, will be the guest speaker. Dame Silvia is a…

Southland branch President

Toni Green has been re-elected as the Law Society’s Southland branch President. A partner of AWS Legal in Invercargill, Ms Green was elected branch President last year. She was admitted in 1994, the same year she graduated from Otago University. She then joined the firm that was at the time known as…

Can robots be lawyers? Yeah … Nah

The future lawyer? Probably not... Massey University academic David Brougham hit the news last month when he said many jobs currently considered high skill – like accountants, lawyers and researchers – consist of a set of repetitive actions that can be codified and done by a robot. Dr Brougham said there is…

Innovation requires more than new pot plants

Attractive pot plants: not sufficient for innovation. Unless you practice under a rock, you will probably know that the legal profession is undergoing a radical transformation. No lawyer who reads LawTalk could have escaped the fact that software and other technology are no longer just means for lawyers to improve their practices. At…

How to develop a thriving law firm

Four factors are important for a modern law firm to thrive, according to Anthony Harper CEO Lisa Jacobs. “We’ve looked to get an alignment between our strategy, our people and then developing systems and a shared culture to support that strategy,” Ms Jacobs says. “From our perspective, we looked very carefully at…

Interventions so important for rule of law

Interventions by the bar will always be “so important” in upholding the rule of law, Justice Patrick Keane said in his valedictory address in the Auckland High Court on 23 June. The public and media can become “intensely engaged” in those rare cases when an offender has taken a life while…

Te Reo Māori i nga Kōti o Aotearoa

Māori language in NZ CourtsAn official language of Aotearoa/New Zealand, anyone may speak te reo Māori in court. However, a party intending to speak Māori should provide advanced notice to the presiding officer of the court, to allow time for arrangement of a competent te reo interpreter. Te Ture mō Te Reo…

Criminal Procedure in New Zealand, 2nd edition

Reviewed by Tiana Epati It is ambitious for any criminal law specialist to try and sum up criminal procedure in New Zealand in one text. Impossible, you might think, to do so in 272 pages. But authors Jeremy Finn and Don Mathias come very close, in my view, to achieving a…

New books

Privacy Law in New Zealand, 2nd editionGeneral Editors Stephen Penk and Rosemary Tobin Five years after publication of the first edition, this brings together eight authors each of whom contributes one or more chapters on an aspect of privacy law. The General Editors say the book has been written for different…

Partner compensation

Is your firm getting it ‘right’?  This time I am going to write about something really tough. I am going to write about dividing up the financial pie in a law firm. The issue of partner compensation surfaces in every law firm and it underlies many other issues. It is often not…

Review aims to facilitate ‘robo’ advice

One of the purposes for updating the financial advisers regime is to enable people to get “robo” advice, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Paul Goldsmith told LawTalk. People may be getting “robo” advice internationally at the moment. In terms of New Zealand providers “that’s what we are trying to enable because…

Proposed patent law change questioned

A proposal to retrospectively change New Zealand’s patent regime is unfair and will disadvantage affected businesses, James & Wells partner Jonathan Lucas says. The changes being considered relate to “divisional” patent applications, which are used to protect additional inventions described in a previous application and retain the original (parent) application’s filing…

Does being the first to suggest mediation make you look weak?

An offer to mediate is an important strategic step in a dispute. Traditionally litigators have viewed it as a sign of weakness to be the first to suggest mediation. However, the party that proposes mediation need no longer be concerned as to whether they are appearing weak or overly eager. Proposing mediation…

Mediating the Asian way

Is there a difference? Lawyers are generally familiar with the concept of mediation, and some will have practical experience of mediation as advocates acting on behalf of clients. It is likely however, given increasing Asian migration to New Zealand, that those clients will identify as Asian. To what extent should changes…

Charge-out rates information released

The average charge-out rate for lawyers who are law firm employees is $292.70 an hour (exclusive of GST and disbursements), according to a New Zealand Law Society survey carried out early June. This was up on the average charge-out rate of $270/hour in a February 2015 survey. The question on charge-out…

Record damages in ‘third-party’ loss copyright infringement

Photo by Jonathan Moreau CC-By-NC-ND In what has been one of the longest-running copyright infringement cases in the annals of New Zealand intellectual property law, Justice Hinton in the High Court awarded record damages of $4.1 million to the first plaintiff in his 2 June judgment in Oraka Technologies Limited &…

Court divided on PI insurance scope

A 2015 Court of Appeal decision found that a claim made against a professional was outside the scope of the relevant professional indemnity policy. JCS Cost Management Ltd v QBE Insurance (International) Ltd [2015] NZCA 524 makes worthwhile reading because it contains a useful analysis of the role of causation in…

Lawyers Complaints Service: Struck off for misappropriating trust funds

Former Auckland lawyer Mary Frances Hackshaw has been struck off after the New Zealand Lawyers and Conveyancers Disciplinary Tribunal found she had misappropriated funds which were held in trust. The Tribunal found Ms Hackshaw guilty of misconduct in [2016] NZLCDT 18. Ms Hackshaw failed to respond to the disciplinary charges and did…

Lawyers Complaints Service: Censure and fine for negligence

After he admitted being negligent, Timaru solicitor Kenneth Selwyn Grave was censured and fined $10,000 by the New Zealand Lawyers and Conveyancers Disciplinary Tribunal. In [2016] NZLCDT 8 Mr Grave was charged with negligence in his professional capacity of such a degree as to bring his profession into disrepute. Mr Grave’s conduct…

Lawyers Complaints Service: Strong argument did not warrant disciplinary response

The Legal Complaints Review Officer (LCRO) has reversed a decision of the Law Society’s National Standards Committee (NSC) finding unsatisfactory conduct and censuring Dr Tony Molloy QC. Reported comments of Dr Molloy about judges and the justice system in an article entitled New Zealanders shafted by fraudulent justice system, says top…