On 19 June 2018, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) published a Discussion Document proposing the introduction of beneficial ownership registers for New Zealand companies and limited partnerships (termed “corporate entities”). The proposals are driven by recent high-profile cases of alleged criminal wrongdoing involving the use of New Zealand-registered…

Te Pae Oranga is the new name for Iwi Community Panels, which were launched in 2010 to reduce the load on the court system and prevent minor offending leading to serious crime and imprisonment. Te Pae Oranga is a lawful alternative to prosecution for some low-level offending, run by the…

Karen Venables LawFest organiser Andrew King continues a series of interviews with key legal professionals with their innovation and technology stories. What does legal innovation mean to you? Innovation for us has been around looking at our services from a clients’ perspective and designing the way we practise around what they want or…

If this summer is anything like last year’s, then offices and other indoor venues could again turn into ovens. NIWA says the nationwide average temperature for the 2017-18 summer was 18.8 degrees, 0.3 degrees above the previous record set in the hot months of 1934-35. So when is it too hot to…

I have questions about job application health questions. But first, let me clarify that even though I recently attended my first employment law conference, I do not have delusions of grandeur about my employment law expertise – I am not a specialist employment lawyer. However, I am a new employer of…

With the holidays around the corner, we’re being asked more and more often, “what are you doing this summer?” And it seems we’re expected to answer in a way that shows how busy, popular and filled with doing-ness we are. Our society is so action-orientated (or action-obsessed) that we expect to…

And lo, it was Christmas time again. That time of jingly bells and clinking glasses and frantic end runs at work, followed by frantic grocery runs at home. It’s a busy time, but I hope for you it is busy in that nice joyful way where even amidst the stress…

The Complete Guide to Persuasive Advocacy, 2nd Edition, 2018 (Reprint) By Professor George Hampel AM QC, Justice Ann Ainslie-Wallace, Elizabeth Brimer and Randall Kune Reviewed by Garry Williams As Murray Gleeson AC QC (Chief Justice of Australia 1998-2008) says in the foreword to the first edition of the Advocacy Manual – The Complete…

The review of the 2014 family justice reforms is currently underway, and the Independent Panel has much to consider – as befits the importance of the subject and the political attention their deliberations will receive. Justice Minister Andrew Little has said that he is concerned that families and children are losing…

Chief District Court Judge Jan-Marie Doogue Improving diversity among judges is vital if, as a people’s court, the District Court is to remain relevant to the diverse communities it serves, explains Chief District Court Judge Jan-Marie Doogue. The criminal justice system has been a topic of intense debate in 2018. The discussion, brain…