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New Zealand Law Society - LawTalk issue 919

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LawTalk issue 919

LawTalk issue 919

LawTalk issue 919

29 June 2018

This issue looks at the results of the Legal Workplace Environment Survey carried out for the Law Society. We also provide news on the legal profession, developments in the law and in legal practice, and give two viewpoints on why New Zealand does not need a written constitution, along with other information relevant to practising law in New Zealand.

Download LawTalk issue 919 (PDF file, 11.12 MB) View as a flip-book ISSUU.COM

In my first two LawTalk articles, I explored different ways to incorporate te reo Māori within our profession and the importance of getting te reo right. This helps us as lawyers to maintain our professional integrity and standards. Every time I hear and see my colleagues using te reo in their…

Little is remembered of the grand jury of New Zealand nowadays, but it existed within living memory – after 118 years of operation starting in 1844, the last grand jury sat in Gisborne on 28 November 1961. As late as July 1961 a grand jury in Hamilton refused to permit…

There is an appetite in the justice sector for conversations about how we can improve our court system, if feedback from recent articles in LawTalk is anything to go by. And I’m grateful for the good and constructive feedback I’ve received from LawTalk readers. This column is focused on the use of data and analytics,…

Networking for those who hate networking

I once got stuck in a horror movie at a party. It was my cousin’s engagement party and I was 11. I have a lot of cousins and while I can now name almost all of them, at the time I didn’t know the names of anyone beyond them –…

The term, ‘legal operations’ or ‘legal ops’, has crept into our collective in-house consciousness in New Zealand over the last couple of years. Is it new? That depends on where you live. Legal operations as a dedicated function within an in-house legal team is not a new concept or function to…

People In The Law

How do you juggle teaching law while being Dean of Law, along with managing a busy family life? Professor Jessica Palmer, who was admitted in 2002, was appointed Dean of Otago University’s Faculty of Law in April this year, replacing Professor Mark Henaghan. She is the first woman to be appointed…

Born and raised in China, Xiaoji Li has had a prominent and varied career in both the Chinese and New Zealand justice sectors. Starting his education in China, Mr Li attended a highly-ranked police academy where he finished a law degree while training as a police officer. In 2002 he came to…

Update

The foundation for our current ACC legislation is found in the recommendations of the 1967 Woodhouse Royal Commission Report Compensation for Personal Injury in New Zealand. This proposed the abolition of the common law right to sue for damages for personal injury caused by negligence or breach of statutory duty,…

In environmental circles a recent debate has been whether the approach to consideration of resource consents has changed as a result of the Supreme Court’s decision in King Salmon (Environmental Defence Society v The New Zealand King Salmon Co Ltd [2014] 1 NZLR 593). Prior to King Salmon it was conventional…

This article was prepared by the New Zealand Parole Board. Fraud and its many complexities were at the forefront of discussion at the New Zealand Parole Board conference, which heard a “she’ll be right attitude” hampers detection of the crime in this country. The Serious Fraud Office’s general counsel, Paul O’Neil, made…

The Land Transfer Act 2017 has, by popular demand, been renamed the Land Transfer, Identity Verification, Risk Assessment, Respect of Practitioners’ Role in Upholding the Register, and Not-quite-indefeasible Title Act 2017. It hasn’t really, I just made that up. But it highlights that this legislation, which comes into force later…

The New Zealand High Court has ruled on the extent to which a target company that successfully defends a takeover bid can recover the cost of doing so from the unsuccessful bidder (Abano Healthcare Group Ltd v Healthcare Partners Holdings Ltd [2018] NZHC 817). A unique aspect of New Zealand takeover…

CRS and corporate trustees in New ZealandThe Common Reporting Standard (CRS) is a global initiative by which the governments of virtually every country have agreed to cooperate in the detection and prevention of tax evasion by exchanging information about financial assets held for individuals in financial institutions in each country.…

Diversity is often considered in terms of cultural, religious and racial diversity. For the purposes of this article, the term cultural diversity encompasses all of these areas. When there is cultural diversity between parties in negotiation, focus on the cultural practices of the individuals concerned rather than the culture as a…

Changing Our Culture

The most comprehensive research carried out on the legal profession environment shows that nearly one-third of female lawyers have been sexually harassed during their working life. More than half of all lawyers have been bullied at some time in their working life. The survey was released on 30 May 2018. Of…

Last year was the 120th anniversary of Ethel Benjamin’s graduation into the legal profession. To mark the occasion, LawTalk spoke to six working lawyers all holding different positions on top of their jobs as lawyers in an article entitled “Changes I want to see for women in law in 2017: Six…

The article in the May issue of LawTalk on this topic charts the scale of this problem and the various causes and consequences (“Bullying from the bench”, LawTalk 917, page 44). Geoff Adlam has consulted all the appropriate groups and produced a worthwhile picture. But I wonder if the problem has a simpler…

Constitutional law

Should New Zealand have a written constitution? It’s a perennial debate, but one most useful for law students. “Wow! New Zealand is different? Why aren’t we like those other countries? If we were to have a written constitution, what would we include? And let’s not forget [insert unique cultural or historic…

New Zealand’s constitutional system is working well and would be worsened by introducing judicial supremacy under a codified constitution, Paul East QC says. In the interests of stimulating broad discussion on New Zealand’s constitutional future, the New Zealand Law Foundation supported the former Attorney-General to write a critique of the constitutional…

Practice

The traditional image of a law office and a courthouse has been changing, much of it driven by the need to introduce and incorporate new technology, but also to transform the layout into a less rigid theatre of work, reflecting a flexible 21st Century workplace. But then the face of law…

Heart of the Waikato is a New Zealand success story

In the past decade or so Hamilton has capitalised on its gateway status with businesses and people moving there for its lower costs, space and potential. It’s also a help that the never-ending growth of a certain city just up the road has benefits for the wider Upper North Island area. New…

I love getting feedback and questions from readers of this column. It is a bit depressing how little actual change it seems to be driving, however. Here’s how a typical reader interaction works: Reader: “Hey Damian, I just wanted to say thanks for all of the great advice in your last LawTalk…

Future Of Law

A decade ago, the Law Foundation took the far-sighted step of establishing a specialist research centre at Otago University to study law and policy challenges for New Zealand arising from the adoption of new technologies. At that time, technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) were only just beginning to emerge. Now AI…

US legal management consultants Altman Weil have released the results of their 2018 Law Firms in Transition Survey. The March/April 2018 survey of managing partners and chairs at law firms with 50 or more lawyers received responses from 398 firms (49.7% of those polled).

Lawyers Complaints Service

A lawyers standards committee decided to take no further action against a lawyer who said it was inappropriate for a District Court Judge to continue to serve on the bench. Auckland barrister Catriona MacLennan’s statements were the subject of an investigation following her public criticism of Judge John Brandts-Giesen. Judge Brandts-Giesen discharged…

A lawyer certified and submitted a land transfer instrument in Landonline without confirming that he had authority from both joint owners to do so, a lawyers standards committee has found. The committee censured the lawyer, Higden, for unsatisfactory conduct and ordered him to pay $1,000 costs. It also ordered that the…

A lawyer has been fined $1,500 for failing to comply with a lawyers standards committee order to reduce a fee he charged. The committee determined that the failure to comply with the order was unsatisfactory conduct. Ms Witherfield complained to the Lawyers Complaints Service about the fees that the lawyer, Jorkins, charged…

Despite his client instructing him not to honour an undertaking he had given, a lawyer has been fined $2,500 for breaching that undertaking. The lawyer, Rokesmith, acted for his client, Mr Ayresleigh, who was selling a property. Mr Ayresleigh agreed to complete some remedial works to the property before settlement. However, an…

A barrister who sent out an important letter despite her client not having given her the say-so has been fined $1,500 by a lawyers standards committee. The committee also found that the barrister, Redlaw, failed to keep her client informed and/or consult her about ongoing instructions to an accountant. The committee made…

A barrister has been censured for filing and certifying a without notice application that was far below the threshold set by the Family Court Rules and the principles in Martin v Ryan [1990] 2 NZLR 209. When imposing the censure, a lawyers standards committee said it found the unsatisfactory conduct to…

Serious negligence and incompetence has resulted in an Auckland lawyer being suspended from practice as a barrister or solicitor for 15 months. Jinyue (Paul) Young was found guilty of four charges by the Disciplinary Tribunal at different levels including misconduct, negligence and unsatisfactory conduct. The offending relates to a dispute between his…

It was unsatisfactory conduct for a lawyer to deduct fees from client money being held for another “particular purpose”, the Legal Complaints Review Officer (LCRO) has found. In LCRO 139/2017, the LCRO considered an application for a review of a lawyers standards committee decision to take no further action on a…