Cutting your own track: Chris Merrick

Chris Merrick’s tone deepens when he talks about his year of full-immersion learning in te reo Māori.

Barristers.Comm establishes Māori and Pasifika internship

Wellington barristers chambers Barristers.Comm has established a partnership with Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University of Wellington’s Faculty of Law, by offering an annual internship to Māori and Pasifika law students. A signing ceremony in the Old Government Buildings in December, was attended by Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Māori) Professor Rawinia Higgins, Assistant…

Ian Ross looks back over 50 years in practice

By Jacki Jeanmonod Admitted as a barrister and solicitor in January 1967, Ian Ross recently wound down a long and successful legal career as a consultant for Auckland-based property law firm AlexanderDorrington. His six years there followed its acquisition of Ross & Whitney in 2014. I asked him about his long…

Clive Elliott QC and the climate change exhibition

Auckland QC Clive Elliott is a passionate advocate for action to address climate change.

The Innovators: Wayne Rumbles, Associate Professor, University of Waikato

LawFest organiser Andrew King continues a series of interviews with key legal professionals with their innovation and technology stories. Tell us about yourselfI have been a legal academic for the past 20 years. I began my academic career at the University of Waikato teaching law and information technology and criminal law…

Developments in access to justice

Little shared understanding of pro bono legal servicesA new University of Otago Legal Issues Centre (UOLIC) report says research suggests there is little shared understanding by the legal profession of what constitutes pro bono legal services. The report, New Zealand Lawyers, Pro Bono and Access to Justice, was co-authored by Kayla…

AML/CFT developments

Former lawyer sentenced for money laundering Former lawyer Andrew Neill Simpson has been sentenced to two years and nine months’ imprisonment after pleading guilty on 27 November 2019 to 13 charges of money laundering under section 243(2) of the Crimes Act 1961. Mr Simpson surrendered his practising certificate upon his guilty plea. In…

Assessing Risk

By Paul Sills Our responses to fear and the unknown are in the spotlight as the coronavirus, COVID-19, spreads around the world and dominates the news. As well as media images of people covered head to toe in plastic bags for protection, and stories of those affected by travel bans and…

Client-centric legal representation

By Emily Morrow What’s unique about it?If one asked most lawyers whether they provide client-centric legal services, the vast majority would say they do. However, if one were to ask what client-centric representation means, I suspect many lawyers would say something like “legal work that is high-quality and addresses the problems…

CPD as a Growth Opportunity

By Sarah Alderson The end of March for the legal profession marks the end of a CPD year. This March, with the rapid escalation of the COVID-19 situation our scramble for CPD points was pushed to one side in aid of alternate ways of working. That said, all the usual advertisements…

Houston: space, history and food

By John Bishop Houston claims the honour of its name being the first word spoken on the moon. Remember what Neil Armstrong said: “Houston, the eagle has landed.” Today the Houston Space Centre isn’t nearly as important as it once was because the space programme isn’t as important as it once was. It…

Judicial leadership on equal access to justice for culturally and linguistically diverse parties in courts

By Mai Chen On 17 February 2020, New Zealand Asian Lawyers (a membership organisation under the umbrella of the Superdiversity Institute for Law, Policy and Business and New Zealand Asian Leaders) and the New Zealand Law Society’s Auckland branch co-hosted a seminar on judges’ perspectives on representing culturally, linguistically and ethnically…

Parental leave for members of barristers’ chambers

By Katerina Wendt and Garry Williams In recent years there has been an increasing trend overseas for barristers’ chambers to adopt parental leave policies for their self-employed members. In England, the Bar Standards Board, which regulates barristers, has equality rules that – since 2017 – require chambers to have parental leave policies…

Phil Goff’s email account was... possibly... hacked

Will yours be next?By Damian Funnell By now you’re probably aware that Phil Goff’s personal email account was allegedly hacked and, according to the New Zealand Herald, someone tried to sell tens of thousands of his emails. These emails purportedly included a ton of sensitive personal information and confidential emails. Mr Goff…

Practising with empathy

By Tim Gunn Practising law requires a wide skillset but an often overlooked skill is the difficult area of understanding the human side of a client’s needs. John L. Barkai of the University of Hawaii School of Law states that: “Most lawyers view the practice of law as a set of legal…

Prorogation and Politics

A report from paradiseBy Warren Pyke On 7 November 2019, the Judges of the Court of Appeal of the Cook Islands held a legal education update seminar in Rarotonga. The President of the Court, DAR Williams J, presented on the topic of international arbitration clauses in commercial contracts; Asher J on…

Recent legal books

By Geoff Adlam Family Law Policy in New Zealand, 5th editionMark Henaghan and Bill Atkin, General Editors Family law policy has developed piecemeal and there is no single family law code which fits all the pieces together, the authors say in a preface. They also comment that the piecemeal approach to law…

Second Performance and Wellbeing Study a valuable picture

By Geoff Adlam A survey of New Zealand lawyers conducted in 2018 and again in 2019 shows that serious health and wellbeing issues remain, but there are indicators that the deep self-scrutiny and impetus for change of the last year are having an impact. Both surveys were carried out by the College…

Some interesting New Zealand legislation

Raupo Houses Act 1842: To discourage the erection of houses made of raupo and other inflammable materials, an annual tax of £20 could be levied in a specified town on every building constructed wholly or in part of raupo, nikau, toetoe, wiwi, kakaho, straw, or thatch of any description. The legislation…

The new ADLS-REINZ agreement: Part 2

By Thomas Gibbons This article continues on from the one published in the March issue of LawTalk (pages 47-48), addressing the changes in the ADLS-REINZ Agreement for Sale and Purchase of Real Estate (10th edition 2019). In that article I covered in detail the changes to the first three pages, so logically…

Talking about Mental Health: Wellbeing — enough's enough

By Martin Wilson I’ve wrestled with this … For no amount of my preaching about the what and how of wellbeing is likely to make a jot of difference. We need to action wellbeing to be on a wellbeing path. Rather like, if we’re into biking, we need to do more than…

When the confidential information you disclose “sucks”

...and should be avoided like a punch from Israel AdesanyaBy Kate Duckworth If I had a dollar for every time someone asked me for a free “standard” non-disclosure or confidentiality agreement, I could have long ago retired. The decision of Dobson J in Creative Development Solutions Ltd v Chorus New Zealand Ltd…