Ethics and Professional Practice

ETHICS AND PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE

This practice-based subject advances on your foundational knowledge towards specialised and integrated understandings of Ethics and Professional Practice.

This subject develops understandings about legal practitioners’ obligations to act ethically, in compliance with professional rules and obligations, and demonstrate professional responsibility and professional courtesy in all dealings with clients, the courts, the community, and other lawyers.

On satisfactory completion of this subject you will master advanced theories and practices in Ethics and Professional Practice, and have an understanding of how to apply this knowledge. You will be able to use and explain this knowledge to specialist and non-specialist audiences. Using practice-based analytical and critical thinking skills, you will be able to apply this knowledge to problem-solving and decision-making in practice.

This subject also provides the foundations to develop reflective approaches to objective and subjective analyses of individual and social dimensions of applied law and professional practice in Ethics and Professional Practice in a range of contexts.

Module 1 - Ethical conduct in practice

Module 2 - Professional conduct rules and standards

Module 3 - Client retainers and costs issues

Module 4 - Duty to account and the duty of care

Module 5 - Fiduciary duties and avoiding conflicts

Module 6 - Duty to the court

Module 7 - Professional interactions with the public and other professionals

Module 8 - Written assessment, oral assessment, and portfolio final submission

The New Zealand Council of Legal Education is an independent statutory body constituted under the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006. Its Professional Examinations in Law Regulations 2008 prescribe the qualification and educational requirements for admission as a barrister and solicitor of the High Court of New Zealand. Regulation 8 applies to overseas law graduates and Regulation 9 applies to overseas lawyers.

Overseas law graduates and lawyers wishing to be admitted in New Zealand must first apply to the Council, which will decide what additional education and training is required.

ETHICS AND PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE

Assessment Task Learning Outcome

Module 1 - Ethical conduct in practice

Identify, understand, and critically analyse the categories of persons and institutions for whom a practitioner must have regard in professional legal practice so as to better identify any relevant ethical dimension of a particular situation and resolve dilemmas that arise

Module 2 - Professional conduct rules and standards

Module 3 - Client retainers and costs issues

Identify, understand, and critically analyse professional conduct rules and standards in respect of both written and unwritten rules.

Critically analyse common law and statutory requirements for disclosure to a client of matters relating to the provision of legal services including costs information; law and practice in setting out the terms of a retainer in writing; professional consequences of over-charging; characteristics of, and distinctions between, a general retaining lien and a particular lien including the relevance of privacy principles, and situations in which lien disputes occur and the legislation and rules governing the resolution of those disputes.

Module 4 - Duty to account and the duty of care

Critically analyse duties associated with receiving and holding moneys for the client (the duty to account); the duty to use reasonable care and skill in the conduct of the client's affairs; the principles of the common law, and of statute, which apply to these duties, and appropriate responses in a range of situations where these duties arise in practice.

Module 5 - Fiduciary duties and avoiding conflicts

Explain the professional consequences of a failure to act honestly and fairly in dealings with clients; common situations in practice where the potential for an abuse of fiduciary duty exists; the duty of confidentiality and the recognised exceptions to that duty; the situations where it is permissible for a lawyer to act for more than one client in a matter, and the ways in which risks can be reduced.

Module 6 - Duty to the court

Explain the various duties which a practitioner owes to the court; situations where a real or apparent conflict occurs between the duties a practitioner owes to the court and the duties the practitioner owes to the client, and appropriate practices to avoid or resolve these conflicts.

Module 7 - Professional interactions with the public and other professionals

Critically analyse the rules made under the [LCA 2006] that prescribe the limits on who can practice law, and how the importance of honesty and fair dealing in all relationships encountered in legal practice, and appropriate legal and practical responses to factual situations which typically arise in practice between a practitioner.

Module 8 - Assessment Written assessment

Oral assessment

Portfolio final submission

ETHICS

INTAKE

DATE

November 2022

13 February 2023

15 May 2023

14 August 2023

November 2023

DATE

February 2023 $2,200

May 2023 $2,200

August 2023 $2,200

November 2023 $2,200

Febuary 2024 $2,200

Payment