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New Zealand Law Society - LawTalk issue 923

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LawTalk issue 923

LawTalk issue 923

LawTalk issue 923

09 November 2018

November’s LawTalk brings together a range of commentary and information related to practising law in New Zealand and working as a member of the legal profession. Included are updates on legal developments, ADR, a continuation of our series on mental health and lawyers, progress on the Law Society’s work on workplace culture change, the results of the legal salary survey and topics related to access to justice.

Download LawTalk issue 923 (PDF file, 11.29 MB) View as a flip-book ISSUU.COM

Upper Hutt lawyer Reg Newell and his wife Heather, an experienced fundraiser, have created a new online registry service to manage bequests or legacies left to charities. Mr Newell explains that the initiative at Quest for a Bequest came about through frustration when dealing with these matters. “Some of the information I…

Global engineering and infrastructure advisory company Aurecon has replaced its standard employment contract with a visual, interactive version. Developed in partnership with Law Professor Camilla Andersen from the University of Western Australia, Aurecon’s visual contract’s comic-strip design removes more than 5,500 words used in the company’s previous traditional employment contracts and…

A New Zealand company has developed a way of conducting a house sale and purchase agreement entirely online. Realforms New Zealand says a recent agreement was drafted, e-signed, negotiated, edited, accepted and finalised for a residential property in Christchurch without the use of a piece of paper or a pen. The secret…

Tuia ki runga, tuia ki raro, tuia te rangi e tū nei, tuia te papa e takoto nei, tuia te muka tangata e rangitāmiro nei i a tātou ki a tātou. Kei aku rangatira, kei ngā whetu maiangi o te ao ture, tēnā koutou katoa. For the last few years, the…

Who tried to blow up Richard Singer?

It was 6:15 on a darkening Auckland evening on 9 July 1937. Prominent Auckland lawyer Richard Singer – “Dickie” to his friends – arrived in a taxi outside his house at 122 Grafton Road, a little later than usual. The driver got out to go around and open his door,…

It is a matter of some regret to me that Mylward v Weldon (1596) appears to have been forgotten. In Mylward’s case, the plaintiff had his son, Richard (instead of counsel), draw up the Replication (which, as I’m sure you all know, was what a Reply used to be called). This pleading…

In the October issue of LawTalk we began a series of articles focusing on mental health issues in the legal profession. Sarah Taylor led with a personal story about some of her experiences and this month registered clinical psychologists, Gaynor Parkin and Dr Allanah Casey, write about mental health, wellbeing,…

Chicago, America’s self-styled second city is a special place defined by four factors: the magnificence of its buildings, as the cradle of electric blues, its long history of gangsterism and its blood brother political corruption, and its rather special food – deep dish pizza and the Chicago hot dog. On a…

Talofa lava Mahia i runga i te rangimarie me te ngakau mahake. I am very humbled and honoured to have been elected President of the New Zealand Law Society. I will become the 31st President and I am deeply mindful that I am joining a long line of people who have taken…

People

In a moving and celebratory ceremony in the New Plymouth High Court, Te Wehi Wright was admitted as a barrister and solicitor of the HIgh Court of New Zealand on 10 October in Taranaki's first admission ceremony to be conducted in te reo Māori. Mr Wright, 25, graduated from Victoria University…

Suzanne Innes-Kent has an impressive list of qualifications: an LLB(Hons); LLM (Distinction); Dip Soc Sci (Distinction) and BA(Hons). But that only tells part of her story. Suzanne has also trained and worked in a myriad of fields, and a war zone. She has trained election monitors in Italy, doctors involved in…

LawFest organiser Andrew King continues a series of interviews with key legal professionals with their innovation and technology stories.

Few of us could truthfully say that what we wanted to do for a career when we are eight years old we actually followed up on. Personally, I wanted to be a train driver. But in primary school ex-Silver Fern and now commercial lawyer Adine Wilson knew exactly what her career paths…

Update

Crisis? What crisis?

MBIE’s sixth National Construction Pipeline Report for 2018 sets out the most recent national projection of building and construction activity for the next six years. The report predicts sustained growth, with 43,000 national dwelling consents in 2023, and $41 billion spending across all forms of construction (residential, non-residential and infrastructure). The…

Storm in a cereal bowl

How much do 108 boxes of Weetabix (the British cereal) cost? Answer: approximately $500. How much do four lawyers and three days in the High Court cost? Answer: far more than 108 boxes of Weetabix. Apparently 54% of us like Weet-Bix. Some of us prefer Weetabix, especially if we hail from…

It would be nice to be able to say that cross leases are loved and hated in equal measure, but that simply isn’t true. The hate very much outweighs the love. Cross leases have many detractors, but few supporters. I am close to being a supporter, or at worst neutral. Cross…

Alternative Dispute Resolution

A Consensus Building Approach (CBA) is only as good as its participants. In a majority rules process there are few players and most of them take a passive role. Take our parliamentary process as an example: the Speaker of the House is the in-house rules expert determining whether parliamentarians are working…

This article is about why alternative dispute resolution (ADR) methods, such as arbitration, expert determination, and mediation, are so apt for intellectual property disputes, and how we in New Zealand could improve in this field. The American humourist Ambrose Bierce described a lawsuit as: “A machine which you go into as…

Creating A Just Culture

The New Zealand Law Society introduced the Gender Equality Charter to the legal profession in April this year. The Charter is a set of commitments aimed at improving the retention and advancement of women in the legal profession. Signatories have two years to meet the commitments which include implementing unconscious bias…

The Law Society’s ‘Culture Change Taskforce’ has met for the first time on its commitment to ‘drive and guide systems and culture change within the legal community’. The Taskforce was one of the Law Society’s initiatives in response to its Legal Workplace Environment Survey which was released in late May. The…

Kerrin Humphrey has joined the New Zealand Law Society in the role of Culture Manager. This new position will work closely with the Culture Change Taskforce. Kerrin Humphrey joins the Law Society from the New Zealand Defence Force where she was a strategic adviser on OP RESPECT, the Defence Force’s…

Lawyers Complaints Service

The Legal Complaints Review Officer has upheld a lawyers standards committee decision to take no further action on a complaint. The lawyer, Gargery, acted for Mr Woodcourt on a relationship property matter. Mr and Mrs Woodcourt were married in 1963. They separated in the mid-1970s and their marriage was dissolved in 1986.…

A lawyer who made a payment which he acknowledged should not have been made, has been censured and fined $3,500 by a lawyers standards committee. The lawyer, Blackpool, acted for Mr and Mrs Claypole on the sale of their property, which they owned as tenants in common in equal shares. After settlement,…

A lawyer who gave a client advice and assistance was found to be providing regulated services, despite the lawyer considering she was not yet engaged. This finding of a lawyers standards committee was upheld by the Legal Complaints Review Officer (LCRO). The client, Mr Summerson, consulted the lawyer, Dilber, on a challenge…

A law firm which did not establish and maintain “due separation” between its office and the office of an employment advocate breached rule 11.1 of the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act (Lawyers: Conduct and Client Care) Rules 2008 (RCCC), the Legal Complaints Review Officer (LCRO) found in LCRO 240/2017. The law firm,…

A lawyer who failed to address a conflict of interest in a timely manner has been censured and fined $3,000 by a lawyers standards committee. The lawyer, Dombey, acted for Mr Jeddler and Ms Swidger, who had begun a personal relationship, on their purchase of a bare block of land in…

A barrister failed to serve the required application and affidavit to set aside bankruptcy notices on the judgment creditors within time which constituted unsatisfactory conduct, the Legal Complaints Review Officer (LCRO) has found in LCRO 35/2015. The barrister, Bantam, represented Mr Crimple and Ms Datchery in High Court proceedings to set…

A lawyer who charged clients a “Land Transfer Tax” as a disbursement when no such tax exists had engaged in unsatisfactory conduct, a lawyers standards committee has found. The lawyer, Darnay, noted a $100 disbursement for either a “Land Transfer Tax”, “Land Transfer Tax Statement” or “Land Transfer Tax Statement for…

When preparing a will it is incumbent on a lawyer to establish whether the will-maker’s wishes can be put into effect, the Legal Complaints Review Officer (LCRO) says. To that end, a lawyer owes his or her client a duty to check the ownership of the client’s property. In LCRO 201/2017,…

A lawyer’s oversight, where he did not notice an overpayment to his client, did not warrant a disciplinary response, the Legal Complaints Review Officer (LCRO) has found. The lawyer, Grueby, acted for the vendors of a residential property purchased by Mr Tulkinghorn and his family trust. The agreement for sale and purchase…

A lawyer who failed to maintain proper standards of professionalism in his interactions with a college board of trustees has been censured and fined $1,500 by a lawyers standards committee. After his brother – a teacher at the college – was dismissed, the lawyer, Drummle, attended a number of board of…

Practice

There appears to be little difference between salaries of employed male and female lawyers with the same levels of experience in the first nine years of legal practice. This is one of the findings of the New Zealand Law Society and Niche Consulting Group Legal Salary Survey 2018. The survey was sent…

This is the second part of a two-part series. In this issue we look at some of the other startup marketing techniques that can be used effectively by lawyers. Engineering as marketingBuild something useful, put your name on it and it will advertise your firm forever. The concept behind using engineering…

A shortage of notaries public in rural areas is prompting a call from the New Zealand Society of Notaries for qualified lawyers who might be interested in applying to be a Notary Public. Society President Stewart Germann says there are over 200 Notaries Public in New Zealand, but many provincial areas…

Today’s increasing data volumes and the subsequent cost of managing this data require us to work smarter and make better use of technology. Technology Assisted Review (TAR) is a proven method to effectively get through large volumes of information. It is considerably faster, cheaper and more accurate than any human review…

In-house legal teams are an integral part of many New Zealand organisations, both in corporate organisations and in central and local government; but what’s it like to be the sole legal counsel in your organisation? According to these lawyers who have taken up that challenge, it’s varied, unpredictable, different from…

The Justice System

It will be the end of an era early in 2019 when New Zealand’s 12th Chief Justice retires. A trailblazer in many ways, Dame Sian Elias will have been the third-longest serving Chief Justice since Sir William Martin’s appointment on 10 January 1842. Dame Sian was the first woman to be…

“Sian Elias is being appointed [Chief Justice] because of her outstanding legal ability, her empathy with the community in all its diversity and the leadership and foresight she will bring to this role. “At the age of 50, she is in the vanguard of a new generation of leaders in the…

Access To Justice

McKenzie friends: there’s more of them, but what do they actually do?

A McKenzie friend is someone who attends court in support of a party that does not have legal representation. The term originates from the British case McKenzie v McKenzie [1970] 3 All ER. This was a divorce proceeding where the husband had been legally aided in earlier stages of litigation, but…

A new online resource will help judges and lawyers work more effectively with vulnerable witnesses and defendants, who often face difficulties navigating the legal system and achieving justice. Based on a British model, Benchmark includes an initial seven guidelines, including pre-trial case management for vulnerable witnesses and working with court-appointed communications…

The Symposium organising committee (from left to right): Employment Relations Authority Chief James Crichton, Employment Court Chief Judge Christina Inglis, Authority member Robin Arthur and AUT Professor of Work Erling Rasmussen. Barriers to pursuing employment claims were under scrutiny at a recent symposium hosted in Auckland by AUT’s Work Research Institute,…

The Ministry of Justice has been carrying out a triennial review of the legal aid policy settings. The ministry has said it is a targeted regulatory review with narrow legislative changes and a wider access to justice component. The review included a series of forums between the ministry and legal aid…