From the Law Society | Te Kāhui Ture

The Māori Language Commissioner, Professor Rawinia Higgins, wrote eloquently in The Spinoff recently about the importance of championing te reo Māori, for the benefit of all New Zealanders. “We need to invite and encourage all New Zealanders to see te reo as part of our identity as Kiwis and as something…

Desktop Reviews of trust account operators

By Ben Potaka A fundamental role of the Law Society’s Inspectorate is to protect clients’ monies held in solicitors’ trust accounts and to ensure that any practice operating a trust account meet the requirements of the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006 (LCA) and associated rules and regulations. In order to fulfil…

Moving to practise — and ballroom dance — 19,000km away

Nicola Keating, barrister, Barristers.Comm, WellingtonNewly admitted to the New Zealand Bar, Nicola Keating grew up in Rochdale, northern England. After completing her law studies and admission in 1998, Nicola practised as a solicitor in England for 20 years. During her two-decade long career, she obtained her Higher Rights of Audience (HRA)…

The richest backstory: Katie Paul

By Jamie Dobson As she was being admitted as a lawyer in October 2019, Justice Muir observed that she had the richest backstory of anyone he had the privilege of admitting. From the village of Mourea, which is wedged between lakes Rotorua and Rotoiti, Katie Paul (Te Arawa and Mataatua) completed a…

The Innovators: Sian Wingate, Senior Legal Counsel, Ultrafast Fibre and ILANZ President

LawFest organiser Andrew King continues a series of interviews with key legal professionals with their innovation and technology stories. Tell us about yourself? I’m Sian Wingate and I absolutely love being a lawyer! I wear a few hats in the legal profession. I am president of the In-house Lawyers Association of…

What's wrong with compulsory CLE?

By Kristy McDonald QC It’s the time of year when I have cleared my desk enough to think about whether I have met my Continuing Professional Development (CPD) requirements. I’d like to be having a holiday: it’s been a very long year and I’ve achieved quite a bit professionally – worked hard,…

International women judges conference in Auckland

By Justice Susan Glazebrook and Judge Mary O’Dwyer On 7-10 May this year in Auckland the International Association of Women Judges (IAWJ) is holding its biennial conference, with a line-up of impressive speakers with a vast range of experience. Hosted by the New Zealand Association of Women Judges (NZAWJ), the theme of…

Trending out: Should you plan for open-plan?

By Jamie Dobson Despite scholarship, studies and surveys on the impact of open-plan office space designs repeatedly pointing towards risks to wellbeing, the drift towards working in open, agile environments continues. The best office in the world, as voted at the 2019 World Architecture Festival, is new Auckland building B:HIVE designed by…

Lawyers' attire: Is being trendy still stylish?

By Craig Stephen Back in March 2017, LawTalk published an article entitled “Dressing for Success”, in which various interviewees espoused their views on dressing well for interviews and furthering a legal career. But do lawyers still dress extremely smartly or has there been a general slackening in attire, a case of ‘dress down Friday’ being…

The new ADLS-REINZ agreement: Part 1

By Thomas Gibbons IntroductionAny change to the ADLS-REINZ Agreement for Sale and Purchase of Real Estate is usually something to suffer rather than savour. Hard work on understanding the changes is ahead. The agreement, now in its 10th edition, is in some ways a thing of beauty: a standard form that does…

Appointment and discharge of trustees when the Trusts Act comes into force

By Rhonda Powell Some of the most wide-reaching changes to the law brought by the Trusts Act 2019 (in force on 30 January 2021) are the new provisions on appointment and discharge of trustees and vesting of trust property (Part 5: ss 92-120). The new provisions are longer and more prescriptive…

Family Protection Act awards for adult children

By Kimberly Lawrence The future of the percentage-based approachPercentages have long dominated the approach lawyers and judges take to assessing claims under the Family Protection Act 1955. However, the recent case of Carson v Lane [2019] NZHC 3259 squarely addressed the limitations of such an approach, and in particular, whether percentages…

Update on post-termination problems in franchising

By Deirdre Watson Post-termination obligations such as restraint of trade clauses are a common source of disharmony upon termination of a franchise, especially where the termination follows a souring of the relationship, where there are mutual allegations of breach, and where all trust and confidence between the parties has been lost. Franchisees…

Principles of influence: Scarcity

By Paul Sills Scarcity is a particularly relevant principle of influence because it applies to our everyday lives, both personally and professionally. Being aware of the effects that the scarcity principle has on our thinking, and adopting strategies to successfully address such effects, is vital to achieving our goals. The scarcity principle…

Former police officer in Norway now mentor to Kiwi lawyers and their clients

By Nick Butcher Auckland counsellor Maggie Cruz has lived a life less ordinary. Born in Norway, she started her career training to be a police officer in the Scandinavian country. She then left for Hawaii to undertake further studies before changing her focus to social work and settling in New Zealand. Her parents…

What if we were trained to help each other?

By Sarah Taylor Our friend Tony Southall died on 9 September 2019. He took his own life. I say ‘our’ friend because there were hundreds of us at his funeral, and hundreds more in our legal whanau who were deeply saddened by his death. I interviewed Tony for this series (LawTalk 925,…

Real self-care

By Raewyn Ng In May 2019 the World Health Organisation declared a global mental health crisis and defined burnout as an occupational risk and a workplace condition. It’s not surprising that in a world that glamorises being overworked and stressed, the self-care industry has grown to be worth US$11 billion a year…

Climate change and educating girls

Project DrawdownBy Tracey Cormack United Nations data shows there are economic, cultural and safety-related barriers to impede about 130 million girls around the world from realising their right to education. One nation where female education is particularly limited is Afghanistan where the Taliban banned education for girls when it seized power in…

Why are iPhones so expensive?

By Damian Funnell And should I be paying so much?Commoditisation has been a constant since the dawn of the tech era. Until the advent of the iPhone it never mattered how innovative or advanced a product was – the market would always catch up. The clones would arrive and prices (and margins)…

At the privy council in the 1960s

By Sir Ian Barker QC Some reflectionsWhen I first qualified in the late 1950s, the idea of appearing in the Privy Council – then New Zealand’s highest court – seemed both attractive and daunting to a newly-fledged lawyer with advocacy aspirations. No New Zealand appeal had gone there since before the…

Recent legal books

Reviewed by Geoff Adlam Assessment of Mental Capacity – A New Zealand Guide for Doctors and LawyersBy Alison Douglass, Greg Young and John McMillan The title perfectly defines this. Dunedin barrister and health and disability law specialist Alison Douglass, Capital Coast DHB consultant psychiatrist Dr Greg Young and Professor John…

An impetuous lawyer looking for his big break

By Craig Stephen The Main ChanceThe Main Chance is one of those series where the title incorporates the name of the protagonist: which in this case is ambitious but caring solicitor David Main. The Main Chance ran in Britain on the ITV network between 1969 and 1975 with a total of 45…

Four different directions in the law

Rt Hon Sir Alfred Kingsley North KBE KCOne of the founding members of the Court of Appeal and its second President, Sir Alfred (known as “Alf”) was born in Christchurch in 1900. Polio at the age of 13 left him with a life-long limp. From Christchurch Boys’ High School he…