LawTalk 879

TOWARDS A BETTER WORLD LAWYERS AS ACTIVISTS

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4 December 2015 · LawTalk 879

Inside

23 October 2015

LawTalk 879

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Towards a better world Helping to make the world a better place is an important motivator for many lawyers. Resulting from this motivation, lawyers have developed or taken a lead in a series of initiatives to add value to our society.

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Our Profession, Our People

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Women in the law New Law Society Women’s Advisory Panel.

Megan Williams (left) speaks with Joyce Atim, a refugee from Sudan.

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Practising well How stress makes you fat.

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Legal information Nevill’s Will Drafting Handbook, 7th Edition by Sarah Parsons and Nicky Richardson, Reviewed by Jacintha Atkinson; Public Law in the Age of Statutes: Essays in Honour of Dennis Pearce, Edited by Anthony J Connolly and Daniel Stewart; The New Zealand Supreme Court: The First Ten Years, Edited

by Andrew Stockley and Michael Littlewood; Why Lawyers Are Like Lobsters (and other lessons on surviving in the law)

by Marcus Elliott.

Swearing in ceremony for Coroner Brigitte Windley

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Domain Name Commission seeks comment

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Looking the gift horse in the mouth Collateral rewards and gifts.

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Intimate partner violence The role of risk assessment and information sharing.

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The Human Rights Review Tribunal Employment institutions and the adequacy of remedies.

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NZLS CLE – CPD calendar

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Private practice to in-house and back The opportunities afforded by a temporary in-house experience are huge. The chance should be grabbed if offered.

Looking the gift horse in the mouth

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Lawyers Complaints Service

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Classified advertising

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LawTalk 879 · 4 December 2015

News Points Gender equality Australia’s Fair Work Ombudsman now allocates more than half of its legal work to female barristers. Last financial year, the agency briefed 56 female barristers and 34 men for its legal work.

“We have been pushing hard to achieve gender equality in the number of briefs allocated as well as the value of the cases,” says Fair Work Ombudsman Chief Counsel Janine Webster.

The Fair Work Ombudsman spent $876,200 in 2014-15 briefing barristers for its legal work.

“We have been edging closer to gender equality over the past few years,” Ms Webster says.

“When we receive recommendations from law firms about preferred counsel, a list of names that does not include female options will be rejected. We urge other agencies to follow our lead and set targets.”

LawTalk is published by the New Zealand Law Society for the New Zealand legal profession. It is published fortnightly and has been published since 1974. LawTalk is sent to every lawyer in New Zealand who holds a current practising certificate. Lawyer numbers change over the year, but range from 12,000 upwards. LawTalk is also sent to further recipients who include members of the judiciary, Law Society associate members, E N V I R O N M E N TA L S TAT E M E N T

LawTalk is printed on Sumo Matte. This is an environmentally responsible paper, produced using Elemental Chlorine Free (ECF), FSC© certified, Mixed Source pulp from Responsible Sources, and manufactured under the strict ISO14001 Environmental Management System. The FSC certification means that the international Forest Stewardship Council

What makes lawyers happy?

The social value of their work and its intellectual challenge are among the primary factors that influence satisfaction among lawyers, according to a recent survey.

So, too, are opportunities for advancement and the freedom to control their work processes.

These were among the findings of a survey conducted by the Northeastern University Law School in the United States. It surveyed graduates between 1971 and 2012 to find out what makes them happy.

Money turned out to be one thing lawyers weren’t as happy about. They ranked this more than a point out of seven points below their relationships with colleagues and the level of responsibility they have in the jobs.

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has certified that the paper used to produce LawTalk meets its requirements at all stages along the production chain. The shrink wrap used for delivery of LawTalk is 25 micron biodegradable film manufactured in New Zealand. This degrades naturally. If you wish to discard LawTalk please recycle it. The wrapping may be composted.

E D I TO R Frank Neill · 04 463 2982 editor@lawsociety.org.nz

Plain language Clarity, the international organisation promoting plain legal language, has selected New Zealand as the venue for its next conference.

This will be the sixth international conference for Clarity, whose patrons are New Zealander Sir Kenneth Keith and retired Australian High Court Judge Michael Kirby.

The conference will be held in Wellington from 3 to 5 November 2016 and has the theme The Business of Clarity.

legal executives, Members of Parliament, media, academics and others involved in the legal services industry. Total circulation ranges between 12,500 and 13,000 copies.

An online version of LawTalk is available on the New Zealand Law Society’s website at www.lawsociety.org.nz. This contains most of the articles included in each issue and a full pdf file of each hardcopy issue may also be downloaded.

Established in 1869, the New Zealand Law Society regulates the practice of law in New Zealand and represents the interests of lawyers who choose to be members. The powers and functions of the Law Society are set out in the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006. As well as upholding the fundamental obligations imposed on lawyers who provide regulated services, the Law Society is required to assist and promote the reform of the law, for the purpose of upholding the rule of law and facilitating the administration of justice in New Zealand.  26 Waring Taylor St, Wellington 6011, New Zealand 04 472 7837 

P O Box 5041, Wellington 6145,  New Zealand, or DX SP20202 President – Chris Moore Board – Allister Davis (South Island), John Unsworth (North Island), Kathryn Beck (Auckland), Mark Wilton (Wellington) Executive Director – Christine Grice

JO U R N A L I STS Sasha Borissenko · 04 463 2910 sasha.borissenko@lawsociety.org.nz James Greenland · 04 463 2902 james.greenland@lawsociety.org.nz SE N I O R D E SI GN E R Andrew Jacombs · 04 463 2981 andrew.jacombs@lawsociety.org.nz D E SI GN E R Daz Yang · 04 463 7837 daz.yang@lawsociety.org.nz A D V E R TI SI N G Christine Wilson · 04 463 2905 advertising@lawsociety.org.nz W E BM A STE R Miranda Kaye · 04 463 2990 miranda.kaye@lawsociety.org.nz CO M M U N I CATI O N S M AN AG E R Geoff Adlam · 04 463 2980 geoff.adlam@lawsociety.org.nz P R I N TI N G Service Printers, Wellington D I STR I BU TI O N Western Mailing, Lower Hutt ISSN 0114-989X (Print) ISSN 2382-0330 (Online)

Unless it is clearly indicated, the views expressed in LawTalk are not to be taken as those of, or endorsed by, the New Zealand Law Society. No responsibility whatsoever is accepted by the New Zealand Law Society for any opinion, information, or advertisement contained in LawTalk.

4 December 2015 · LawTalk 879

From the Law Society

Women in the law We are rapidly approaching the end of 2015 and this is the last LawTalk for the year. I would like to comment on three of the many activities that the New Zealand Law Society has been involved in this year The first is the Women’s Advisory Panel that the Law Society has just established. Details of the panel are set out at page 20 of this issue of LawTalk.

The establishment of the Women’s Advisory Panel is an initiative to look at ways to support the retention and advancement of women in the legal profession.

As I have said and written on many occasions over the last two to three years, I believe this is an important issue not just for women but for the profession as a whole. We need to encourage diversity within the profession and at its highest levels.

Without being a reflection of what society is today we cannot hope to attract the brightest talent to the profession nor will we remain relevant.

The Law Society has been working on a number of projects to encourage the retention of women in the profession and to improve their representation in leadership positions.

These include: ▪▪ the new regular “Women in the law” section of LawTalk; ▪▪ the “Women in the legal profession” section on the Law Society’s website has been refreshed (www.lawsociety. org.nz/law-society-services/women-in-the-legal-profession); ▪▪ the successful conference Women, the law – and the corner office, organised by NZLS CLE Ltd; and ▪▪ next year’s conference Women in Law – Career by Design, again organised by NZLS CLE Ltd, which will be webstreamed so people anywhere in the country can participate.

The second issue I would like to address is collegiality and its importance to the profession.

Law Society events provide the opportunity to catch up with colleagues and develop those relationships which support us in our professional life. These opportunities are provided by branches and sections as well as at the seminars and conferences offered by NZLS CLE Ltd. It is those relationships which enable us to keep current, both in terms of black letter law and the rapid changes to how we practise. They enable us to build our resilience and the support networks which are so fundamental to practising well and effectively. Law Society membership is open to all and for relatively modest cost we can participate in a

range of activities from informal events to high quality education, regularly. I also take this opportunity to thank all those hundreds of lawyers who work to provide those events and to deliver the education of which we can take advantage – it is up to each one of us to participate. I have been impressed by what is available, and I would commend these activities to everyone in the profession.

We should also take the opportunity to celebrate together at more formal bar dinners recognising the appointment of judges and the achievements of colleagues. These remain popular with the profession. Our research shows that while there is a flood of legal education available online and all sorts of formats, we still want to meet our colleagues and look for opportunities to do so. Our branches organise some excellent opportunities for members of the profession to get together, as do our sections.

On a final matter we note an issue that I regret remains outstanding. This relates to the Legal Complaints Review Office (LCRO) and its backlog. The LCRO is independent from the Law Society although funded by it. It deals with review applications by parties dissatisfied with decisions of Standards Committees. While recognising the independence of both bodies in relation to decision making, regular meetings are held between the Complaints Service and the LCRO to explore recurring themes and issues in the management of complaints. The LCRO and his deputies are working hard to deal with the reviews in a timely manner.

The Society is continuing to liaise with the Ministry of Justice with a view to steps being taken to assist the LCRO to enhance changes to the officers’ powers, processes and resources, some of which require legislative amendment.

Sadly there will always be matters which are the subject of serious complaints and must be dealt with firmly – our professional reputation depends on it – but many matters which are the subject of complaints are now dealt with quickly and effectively. The LCRO has constraints on its ability to do this and we will continue to address this in conjunction with both it and the Ministry.

We are now approaching the Christmas-New Year break.

I would like to wish LawTalk readers all the very best over the holiday season and all the very best for a productive and fulfilling 2015.

Chris Moore New Zealand Law Society President

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LawTalk 879 · 4 December 2015

TOWARDS A BETTER WORLD LAWYERS AS ACTIVISTS

Helping to make the world a better place is an important motivator for many lawyers. Resulting from this motivation, lawyers have developed or taken a lead in a series of initiatives to add value to our society. Law Society journalists Sasha Borissenko and James Greenland look at some of these initiatives that promote legal activism.

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4 December 2015 · LawTalk 879

Action Station

By Sasha Borissenko Long before Marianne Elliott took up the role of ActionStation national director, she had plans to pay off her student loan by being a litigation lawyer at Rudd, Watts and Stone before backpacking around the Middle East.

In a hostel in Jerusalem, Marianne met a Palestinian family. It was there Marianne decided to travel with the grandfather to visit his family in the West Bank.

“It was shocking to say the least. It was life changing to go through checkpoints with an elderly man and see how he was treated. I guess I was raised in a relatively pro-Israeli environment but that experience profoundly altered my perspective.”

The Tokoroa native and foundation LLM student at Waikato University had always envisioned a career in human rights and advocacy, because she has always had a strong sense of justice.

“When I got to Gaza I realised really quickly that local lawyers were best placed to do legal activism. Instead I found advocacy in a general sense to be more effective.

It’s about rallying people who aren’t directly affected to see human rights issues through a human rights lens.”

In her capacity working for the United Nations in Afghanistan, Marianne would meet with the chief of police to talk about how Afghan police failed to prosecute cases of marital rape in spite of the rights afforded under Afghan legislation, for example.

“I wasn’t trying to change the law or go to court but instead meet with people and advocate for greater respect and enforcement of the law.”

When Marianne decided to come home in 2008, she wrote a book about her Afghanistan experiences and once her partner finished opening a restaurant she began reflecting on all the changes she was seeing around the world.

❝ I was convinced positive change and the wellbeing of all depended on active, engaged and empowered citizenry

Marianne Elliott, ActionStation national director.

Positive change “I was convinced positive change and the well-being of all depended on active, engaged and empowered citizenry.

When ordinary people feel defeated or they don’t know how to use powers of democracy, that’s when power ends in the hands of few.

“You’ve got people like me, who don’t have much money and yet want to feel powerful. By pooling the resources of a lot of people, I don’t feel as powerless in the face of the corporate powerhouse or lobby groups.”

Co-founded by a team consisting of another lawyer and designer, ActionStation was launched in 2014, with the aim of supporting New Zealanders who share progressive values to become more effective and active agents of change.

“Our mandate is to help New Zealanders who hold what we would describe as progressive values, which we define broadly – whether that’s protecting human rights, promoting fairness, deepening democracy, protecting the planet and promoting peace.”

The term “progressive” is seldom used in New Zealand, she says, and ActionStation chooses to use it because it isn’t politically aligned.

“New Zealanders have a tendency to talk about a ‘right wing’ or ‘left wing’ agenda. ‘Progressive’ is a more politically neutral term for core values held by people across the political spectrum whether that’s the importance of human rights, addressing climate change or the promotion of peace, for example.

Running campaigns “We do that by taking member suggestions, filtering those suggestions through a set of criteria to determine whether they are suitable for campaigning, and aligned with our members’ and movement’s core values, and then running campaigns that our members and others can participate [in].”

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LawTalk 879 · 4 December 2015

It’s about providing tools, resources, and advice to community members and groups so that they can drive change themselves.

“Growing inequality has had an effect on democratic engagement. People feel powerless because they can see the reality that power is increasingly unequally distributed.

At the same time, with life demanding more and more of people it’s no surprise that people have less energy and time so we need to make engagement as easy as possible for people.”

ActionStation helped the community group Save the Basin raise enough funds to successfully litigate over the potential building of the Wellington flyover last year, for example.

Success isn’t only measured by a “win” but also by promoting and facilitating greater civic engagement, she says.

“A woman the other day told me that she completed a submission through our digital platform and it was something she would have never otherwise done. That was a big win for us.”

Of the 2,810 submissions made regarding the Government’s Transition Recovery Plan following the Christchurch earthquakes, 2,600 of those were submitted via the Action Station digital platform. ▪

New Zealand Youth Delegation

By Sasha Borissenko Despite the Paris terrorist tragedies of early November, New Zealand Youth Delegation (NZYD) 2015 co-convenor James Young-Drew is all set to go to Paris for the United Nations Climate Change conference.

NZYD is a non-partisan organisation that gives young New Zealanders the opportunity to be officially accredited at United Nations climate change conferences.

NZYD is committed to fair and effective climate action to safeguard the interests of current and future generations, he says.

The born and bred Wellingtonian completed his law

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James Young-Drew, co-convenor of the New Zealand Youth Delegation.

❝ I think that our collective response to this social justice issue [of climate change] will define my generation

degree from Victoria University and after a year gallivanting across Italy with a theatre troupe, he is now working as a law clerk at Wigley & Company solicitors.

Mr Young-Drew enjoys the challenge of engaging with the law and he relishes the prospect of further developing those skills as part of the legal profession. He thinks that a legal career can co-exist alongside and, in many ways, complement activist aspirations.

While he wasn’t always socially minded, his interest developed as a result of meeting “extraordinarily selfless individuals at university”.

“I have a sneaking suspicion I learnt far more from my fellow university students than I did from textbooks.

“Navigating the ‘law’ is a scary and confusing proposition for many. This includes law students and, from time to time, some practitioners, I’m sure. But I think ‘legal activism’ is a much wider concept than courtroom advocacy or access to justice.

The law underpins almost every form of social and political activism, which makes legal skills and knowledge very valuable.”

Excellent example Climate change is an excellent example of

4 December 2015 · LawTalk 879

the law underpinning activist enterprise, he says.

“Whether climate change solutions are sought in the international, domestic, business or community arena, there is almost always a web of legal and regulatory issues to be addressed, challenged, overcome.”

Climate change is a social justice issue, he says.

For example, several low-lying Pacific islands are already facing the prospect of rising seas destroying their homeland, their culture, and their future as nation state.

Globally, the effects of climate change will disproportionately affect indigenous peoples, women, children, and the impoverished, despite the fact that these peoples have contributed the least to the causes of climate change.

“I think that our collective response to this social justice issue will define my generation.”

The 2015 delegation, comprised of nine young Kiwis, is travelling to the Paris conference where the world’s nations are set to negotiate the terms of a universally binding agreement on climate.

Necessary measures New Zealand’s commitments going into the Paris conference fall far short of the measures necessary to keep climate change below the internationally-agreed guardrail of 2°C, he says.

“We believe New Zealand’s unwillingness to transition to a low carbon economy will create significant opportunity cost, reputational loss, and long-term economic risk.”

New Zealand’s emission commitments are modelled on two very specific factors: the ability to offset emissions through forestry, and New Zealand’s access to international carbon markets, he says.

“These could be sink-or-swim issues for our negotiators in Paris.”

In his capacity as a delegate, Mr YoungDrew hopes to achieve three things in Paris.

“The first is to fulfil our designated role as civil society observers by ensuring that New Zealand’s climate negotiators are held to account. A related goal is to enhance public discourse around climate change by communicating developments from Paris to people back home. Finally, from a more personal perspective, the conference will be an incredible opportunity to engage with international issues, and to develop our activist and legal skills.” ▪

Megan Williams, supervisor of Community Law Wellington and Hutt Valley’s Refugee and Immigration Legal Advice Service

Refugees & immigration

By James Greenland Megan Williams, supervisor of Community Law Wellington and Hutt Valley’s Refugee and Immigration Legal Advice Service (RILAS) notes that: “Many, if not most, refugee families are torn apart by the conflicts and/ or persecution that they flee from.

“Many refugees arrive in New Zealand having become separated from their children, spouses, parents and siblings … We see the anxiety, stress and despair that our refugee clients experience due to separation from family members, particularly when those family members are living in unsafe situations.

“And we see the profound positive impact on refugee clients of being reunited with their family members,” she says.

RILAS has a 20-year history of assisting refugees who settle in New Zealand to reunite with their family members (through the Family Reunification policy and the Refugee Family Support Category – a quite internationally unique policy promoting the principle of family unity.)

Ms Williams’s first legal role was clerking for the Ngai Tahu Māori Law Centre in Dunedin, before an “eye-opening” overseas experience in London saw her join the AIRE Centre (Advice on Individual Rights in Europe) where she assisted an organisation that assists marginalised migrants, particularly refugees and asylum seekers, to navigate the European legal systems and assert their rights.

In the late 2000s Megan returned to Aotearoa, taking a position with

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LawTalk 879 · 4 December 2015

Megan Williams (left) speaks with Joyce Atim, a refugee from Sudan.

Kensington Swan in the Māori legal team. By 2011, her desire to continue working with refugees or vulnerable migrants led to a voluntary position with RILAS, the team she now leads.

Law and policy reform “I’ve never referred to myself as an ‘activist’ or thought of myself in those terms. But when I reflect on my work and beliefs, I guess the term is quite accurate,” Ms Williams says.

“We do spend a lot of time advocating for law and policy reform.

“The vision of [Community Law] is ‘those with the least should have the same or better access to justice as those with the most’ and that really drives the work that we all do.”

She says it’s a privilege to work with people from a range of fascinating backgrounds and cultures, and to be entrusted with their stories.

It helps her stay connected to world events – upon hearing about the ISIS-affiliated bombings in Beirut last month, her first thought was for the mother of one of her Iraqi clients – and gives some satisfaction that she is assisting those who need it most to access the New Zealand justice system.

“The best part of the job is seeing families reunited,” Ms Williams says, adding that sometimes she and her team are invited to Wellington airport to witness the joyous reunions first hand.

Massively rewarding “Seeing families back together after years of separation is massively rewarding and many of our volunteers remain

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friends with the clients they have assisted.”

While still hoping to see the annual refugee quota lifted from 750 when it is reviewed next year, Ms Williams says she is glad the plight of Syrian refugees in Europe is receiving media and political attention, as her Syrian and Iraqi clients have been raising fears for their families for a long time.

“But my clients also constantly remind me of the many conflicts and human rights abuses going on worldwide that we do not hear so much about. Our clients from South Sudan, Eritrea, Sri Lanka, Colombia, Myanmar, Afghanistan and many other places are desperately worried about the situations that their family members face.”

Nevertheless, her team is hurriedly preparing for Wellington’s intake of the first Syrians to settle here after the government’s announcement of an “emergency intake” earlier this year. Ms Williams says there has been an increased interest from the legal community in volunteering to assist these refugees, and a training for new volunteers will be held early next year, before the March arrival.

Many who work with refugees may not view their work as activism, “although it definitely does help to effect change even in small ways”, Ms Williams says.

Some volunteers work at corporate firms and really want the opportunity to work with individual people, others see the international refugee crisis and want to help on a local level.

“I think many of our volunteers are motivated by concern at the difficulties that refugees face and by the idea that volunteering their time and expertise can lead to incredibly positive outcomes in the lives of individuals.”

Ultimately, that’s what being an “activist” is all about. ▪

4 December 2015 · LawTalk 879

person who is facing difficulties with their first job or assisting a young person with their first encounter with criminal law and obtaining diversion, preserving their future prospects,” Ms Puah says.

In fact, it was her own experience seeking advice from YouthLaw as a 16-year-old that led to her to law school, where she hoped she would learn the skills necessary to help others and make a difference.

Specialist service

YouthLaw Aotearoa senior solicitor Jen Puah.

YouthLaw Aotearoa

By James Greenland YouthLaw Aotearoa senior solicitor Jen Puah takes the view that all lawyers should incorporate human rights into their legal practice, “so in a sense all lawyers should be ‘activists’”.

“Lawyers are uniquely placed with expert knowledge and abilities to work within the legal sphere to assist with important causes and marginalised sectors of the community who otherwise would not have the ability to work within the legal system to achieve outcomes,” she says.

Her work with New Zealand’s only nationwide community law initiative specialising in young persons’ legal issues places her in a position to advocate on behalf of some of the most vulnerable members of the community – youth.

“Youth are inherently vulnerable owing to their age.

“Lawyers can provide crucial advice at vital junctures in their lives. For example, keeping a child from being removed from school permanently has immense flow-on effects on social welfare, crime and social cost. Some of the best examples I can think of include helping a young

❝ Lawyers are uniquely placed with expert knowledge and abilities to work within the legal sphere to assist with important causes

YouthLaw Aotearoa’s specialist service provides information, advice, assistance, advocacy and representation to under-25s around the country, operating an 0800 line (0800 UTHLAW) Monday to Friday.

Where in-person assistance is not possible, YouthLaw works with other community law centres to ensure that any young person seeking assistance is supported.

Ms Puah says the range of legal issues YouthLaw regularly encounters is diverse and includes employment issues, criminal law, family law, tenancy rights, civil claims, human rights, privacy and education law.

“Youthlaw fills a gap where young people cannot obtain legal aid and cannot afford private representation and provides an advisory interface with other social service agencies to better assist a young person,” she says.

It also produces legal information publications, and undertakes law reform by submitting on bills and publishing independent papers.

Recently, YouthLaw harnessed the technology so ubiquitously used by young people to create a smartphone application extensively detailing New Zealand youths’ legal rights.

Strategic litigation As for advocacy, it also sometimes engages in “strategic litigation”.

The 2014 “Green Bay” case was handled by YouthLaw with the assistance of barrister Simon Judd after a student with special educational needs was excluded from a mainstream school.

“The case provided a platform to raise awareness about a large percentage of our vulnerable clientele with special educational needs who were having difficulties accessing and remaining in education due to a number of factors, including the way that special education is currently funded and administered in New Zealand “The case generated an intense amount

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LawTalk 879 · 4 December 2015

JustSpeak

By Sasha Borissenko JustSpeak national operations manager Hannah Gabriel had always been interested in fairness but it was during her law degree – she will be admitted this month – that she became passionate about access to justice.

Ms Gabriel haphazardly became involved in JustSpeak – a nationwide non-partisan group of young people who are legally inclined and who advocate for evidence and experience-based changes to the criminal justice system.

She attended a JustSpeak forum and some weeks later read in the news about a possible reform to the Youth Court “that sounded deeply unfair”.

In response she wrote JustSpeak an impassioned email about how terrible the change would be and how she hoped they had done something about it and was met with the response “why don’t you do something about it?”

“That’s what I really like about JustSpeak; if you’re passionate and motivated it’s possible to create opportunities for engagement.

❝ We want to reduce harm and one of the key ways of doing that is looking at how our justice system can better support both offenders and victims

Continued from previous page... of interest and we were able to provide a significant amount of media commentary. The intervention in the case of Crown Law and the Human Rights Commission on appeal was particularly significant as it highlighted there were crucial public interest issues at stake,” Ms Puah says.

Wider legal issues becoming important to young people include problems arising from the impact and prevalence of technology. An increasing number of youth are experiencing cyberbullying and many encounter difficulties, such as privacy concerns, because of the misuse of social media.

“There are concerns for overall student safety and ensuring that there are policies and safety mechanisms in place for young people online.

“Sexual discrimination is also a prevalent issue. Increasingly issues around LGBT arise in this context. It is vital that, for instance, schools are understanding of obligations to avoid discriminatory behaviour, for example with transgender students.”

In the sense that it advocates on behalf of the vulnerable, and lobbies for policies that specifically support the rights of young people in adherence to the United Nations Convention on the rights of the child, Ms Puah reckons YouthLaw is “quite proudly ‘activist’”. ▪

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Addictive

JustSpeak national operations manager Hannah Gabriel

“Working in the community sector is addictive. I’m already planning a small NGO with a friend of mine. It will be entirely volunteer run, unveiling to be determined. I would love to keep working in advocacy, whether as a lawyer or in another capacity. Having a legal background is really helpful for this sort of work.”

JustSpeak is focused on criminal justice “because it has a lot of complex issues that have a huge impact on the whole country, but they’re often dealt with in a knee-jerk way based on short-term goals of punishment or immediate community safety (physically removing people from their environments)”.

The current criminal justice climate fails to take into account what will stop people from reoffending, and why people offend in the first place, she says.

“We want to reduce harm and one of the key ways of doing that is looking at how our justice system can better support both offenders and victims. Success in this area could be an entirely different way of doing criminal justice, but first we have to convince politicians that the public is interested in change.”

A hundred-or-so volunteers, criminology and law students and graduates help JustSpeak with research and submission writing, as well as organising forums, helping with social media and general assistance in campaigns.

“The justice system disproportionately affects young people, so young people should have their voices heard. We hold forums for the general public and camps for young people and advocate through reports, submissions and the media for a new approach to justice,” Ms Gabriel says. ▪

4 December 2015 · LawTalk 879

New Zealand Public Interest Project

By Sasha Borissenko Canterbury University sociologist and lecturer Jarrod Gilbert serves as a trustee of the New Zealand Public Interest Project (NZPIP) together with 26 students, Canterbury University’s former Law Dean Chris Gallavin, private investigator Tim McKinnel, lawyers Nigel Hampton QC and Kerry Cook, forensic scientist Anna Sandiford, legal expert Duncan Webb, and founder of investigation firm Zavest Glynn Rigby.

Mr Gilbert has done extensive research in the areas of crime and justice, particularly around issues of recidivism. He is the author of Patched: the history of gangs in New Zealand and is currently producing a book on murder. While researching a television documentary, Mr Gilbert met Michael October, a man whose conviction for rape and murder was, he says, a miscarriage of justice. It alerted him to an individual injustice and wider problems within the justice system.

NZPIP aims to serve people who “fall through the cracks”. The organisation was founded on the belief that it is in the highest interest of the New Zealand public to investigate and appeal potential miscarriages of justice wherever possible.

“It’s easy to look at data and be aware of similar initiatives overseas but NZPIP really came about because a number people were confronted with examples of miscarriages of justice,” Mr Gilbert says.

Very confronting “When you meet somebody who is in prison for a crime they didn’t commit, particularly if it is a serious crime, that is very confronting. And the fact of the matter is there have been many examples of this occurring and the group was formed to play a part in addressing those cases. Often these people aren’t well connected or well equipped to tackle the problems they face, and this body will help them do that.

Canterbury University sociologist and lecturer Jarrod Gilbert

“We see ourselves as a small but important cog in a pretty damn good machine. The New Zealand justice system is very good, particularly at a judicial level – in many ways outstanding. Still, we don’t get it right all the time – we know that – and so our job is to help the system correct errors when they occur.”

NZPIP is currently investigating the case around Michael October, who was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment along with two others for the 1994 rape and murder of 22-year-old Anne-Maree Ellends in the grounds of Christchurch East School.

“While we investigate the matter, it is probably wise not to say too much but needless to say it is a case that has some extremely concerning elements that bring into question the safety of that conviction – not least of which is the only physical evidence at the scene implicates two people, neither of whom are Mr October and both of whom say he was not involved.”

The types of cases NZPIP look at take a very long time to resolve, Mr Gilbert says.

In the meantime, success is measured by working positively and co-operatively with all stakeholders and being seen by all of those involved as making an important contribution.

“I think there is a tendency among some people and groups to protect the status quo even when it’s wrong. It would be nice to break that thinking down a little.” ▪

13

LawTalk 879 · 4 December 2015

New Zealand Animal Law Association

By James Greenland

Auckland lawyer Danielle Duffield considers herself an “activist” – “if by ‘activist’, you mean someone who works to further a particular cause or to advance social change”.

The co-founder of the New Zealand Animal Law Association (NZALA) likes to steer clear of the term’s “strong political connotations”, however. While undertaking legal work to advance animal welfare does involve engagement with the political process through submission writing, the real reason Ms Duffield was inspired to start the NZALA charity was her desire to make a positive and practical contribution to the lives of animals in Aotearoa.

NZALA was launched in October last year and already boasts more than 200 members made up from various corners of the legal profession, from Whangarei to Timaru, who work to “improve the welfare and lives of animals through the legal system”.

“Law regulates almost every facet of life,” Ms Duffield says.

“As such, lawyers are able to use their skills to identify deficiencies in laws affecting vulnerable and marginalised individuals, and to propose amendments that better protect their interests.”

And, depending on your degree of anthropocentrism or thoughts on the fairness of the biological “food chain”, animals might be considered some of the most legally marginalised individuals in our society.

No voice “Animals have no voice in our legal system,” Ms Duffield says. So it’s up to lawyers and others to advocate on their behalf.

Interested in animal welfare since her teen years, Ms Duffield says her passion grew at law school, which was a good fit for a secondary school student who enjoyed writing and debating issues.

At Otago, Ms Duffield set up the Otago Student Animal Legal Defence Fund, a local chapter of the United Statesbased Animal Legal Defense Fund, through which she organised submissions on law reform, lectures on animal law, and animal law awareness raising weeks. She even convinced her law school faculty to offer an animal law paper to undergraduates.

Seeing how the group enabled her and other students to use their legal training to further animal welfare, Ms Duffield decided to establish NZALA, with the goal of further

14

❝ Animals might be considered some of the most legally marginalised individuals in our society

developing the field of animal law in New Zealand and improving animal welfare through the legal system.

She now works full time as a solicitor for Kensington Swan.

Recently, the NZALA launched a pro bono project, providing the Auckland SPCA with legal advice in relation to its animal welfare prosecutions, Ms Duffield says.

The work involves completing initial file reviews of relevant facts and evidence, and writing legal opinions advising on whether an animal welfare prosecution should be pursued, depending on evidential sufficiency and public interest.

Dog rescue trust The NZALA also recently assisted the establishment of a charitable trust for dog rescue and rehoming, called “K9 Rescue and Rehoming”.

Ms Duffield says an NZALA member solicitor was able to draft the original trust deed and constitution, have the trust registered as an incorporated charitable trust, apply to have it registered as a charity under the Charities Act 2005, and advise on various other aspects of setting up and running a charitable trust.

“By completing the work on a no-charge basis, the new charity was instead able to redirect its limited funds toward its important work rescuing and re-homing abandoned animals.”

She says pro bono work enables lawyers to contribute positively to social change.

“This may be for vulnerable individuals and groups who may not otherwise be able to access justice, or for non-profit organisations working to further positive social change.

“The most marginalised groups in our society rarely have the funds to pay for lawyers to work for their causes full-time,

4 December 2015 · LawTalk 879

❝ Undertaking pro bono work for such groups ... is one way in which lawyers can promote positive social change

Danielle Duffield, co-founder of the New Zealand Animal Law Association

so undertaking pro bono work for such groups as they require it, or organisations working to further their interests, is one way in which lawyers can promote positive social change.”

“In my view, being admitted to the bar confers upon lawyers a privileged status, and with that comes an obligation to help those who are less fortunate than ourselves.

“As lawyers, we are particularly well placed to effect positive change, and doing so is immensely rewarding.”

The NZALA is always looking out for new members, Ms Duffield says.

Lawyers and law students are encouraged to sign up to the association at www. nzala.org.nz.

“We still are operating on very limited funding, and will need to secure further funding in order to continue our work advancing the interests of animals through the law,” she says.

People who wish to support NZALA’s work can do so at http://nzala.org/donate/ or by donating to its “GiveaLittle” page at https:// givealittle.co.nz/org/nzala. ▪

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15

LawTalk 879 · 4 December 2015

Our Profession Our People Wellington lawyer Brigitte Windley has been appointed a Coroner. Ms Windley will succeed retiring Dunedin Coroner David Crerar. She was sworn in at the Wellington District Court on 23 November.

Brigitte Windley Before taking up her role as a Coroner, Ms Windley was employed by New Zealand Police as a legal adviser and was on secondment to the Office of the Inspector-General of Intelligence & Security in the role of senior investigator. Earlier in her career she worked for several law firms, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner and Disputes Resolution Services Limited. On announcing Ms Windley’s appointment, the Attorney-General Christopher Finlayson acknowledged the dedicated and able service of Mr Crerar since his appointment as a Coroner in 1979.

Christchurch lawyer Kerry Smith has been appointed an Employment Court Judge. He will be sworn in on 29 January 2016 in Christchurch. Mr Smith is a senior litigation partner with Buddle Findlay in Kerry Smith Christchurch having joined the partnership in 1991. He practises primarily in employment law, resource management and civil litigation. He is currently the Deputy Convenor, Canterbury Westland Lawyers Standards Committee No 1 of the New Zealand Law Society. Mr Smith has also been appointed an acting District Court Judge to provide temporary assistance in the civil jurisdiction. These appointments will initially be based in Wellington but will relocate to the Christchurch Justice and Emergency Services Precinct when it opens in early 2017.

16

Our Profession, Our People

Una Jagose has been appointed Solicitor-General, and will succeed Michael Heron QC on 15 February 2016. Ms Jagose was Deputy Solicitor, Crown Legal Risk at Crown Law for two years before becomUna Jagose ing Acting Director of the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) in February this year. Before becoming Deputy Solicitor, Crown Legal Risk, Ms Jagose worked for Crown Law for over a decade in a variety of roles. She has also been Chief Legal Advisor at the Ministry of Fisheries. She holds an LLB from Otago University and an LLM (First Class Honours) from Victoria University and was admitted in 1990.

Tiana Epati has been appointed to the subcommittee of external advisors to the Legislative Design and Advisory Committee. Ms Epati is the New Zealand Law Society’s Gisborne branch President. A criminal defence Tiana Epati lawyer, she is also a member of the Law Society’s Criminal Law Committee.

Two lawyers have been appointed to the new expert group the government has established to review insolvency law – Michael Arthur and Crispin Vinnell. A commercial litigator, Mr Arthur is a partner of Chapman Tripp in Auckland. Mr Vinnell, who specialises in insolvency and recovery matters, is a partner of Anthony Harper in Christchurch. The working group has seven members and has been set up to provide independent advice to the government on important aspects of corporate insolvency law. It is due to report back to the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs on any recommended changes to the law by the middle of next year.

The College of Law New Zealand has recently appointed criminal lawyer Anna Longdill as an adjunct lecturer. Ms Longdill has over 10 years crown litigation experience with Meredith Connell and has Anna Longdill this year commenced practice as a barrister sole. Anna has represented Immigration New Zealand, Police (civil),

Department of Corrections, Department of Internal Affairs, Department of Conservation and Ministry for Primary Industries. Ms Longdill’s appointment was one of six the College made recently to support the ProAmy Jardine fessional Legal Studies Course which is offered in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Hamilton and Dunedin.

Amy Jardine was appointed in Auckland. Recently returned to New Zealand, Ms Jardine has eight years’ Belinda Moffat experience as a corporate and commercial lawyer, specialising in business transactional law and commercial contracting law.

She has worked for Simpson Grierson in Auckland and Herbert Smith Freehills in Melbourne.

Mark Vickerman Belinda Moffat was appointed in Auckland. Ms Moffat was the Director of Enforcement and Investigations with the Financial Markets Authority, New Zealand and was previously Head of Dispute Resolution for Westpac New Zealand.

Mark Vickerman was appointed, also in Auckland. Mr Vickerman has been a barrister sole since 1987 specialising in family law and relationship property. He has been a faculty member for the NZLS CLE Litigation Skills Course since 2011.

Peter Jenkin QC has been appointed in Wellington. Mr Jenkin has been a barrister sole since 1985 specialising in taxation, trusts, construction and administrative law and was appointed Queens Counsel in 1988. He was a former Vice-President, Board member and Council member of the New Zealand Law Society and former President and Council member of the Wellington District Law Society. He has also been a faculty member from 1995 to 2007 of the NZLS CLE Advanced Litigation Skills Course.

Peter Ratner has been appointed, also in Wellington. Mr Ratner became a partner of Rudd Watts & Stone (now Minter Ellison Rudd Watts), and subsequently established Crengle & Ranter in March 1999. He remains a partner of this practice, now known as Crengle Shreves & Ratner. He is a LEADR Accredited Panel Member.

Our Profession, Our People

4 December 2015 · LawTalk 879

In NZ for its people, idyllic lifestyle and the law

By Sasha Borissenko Despite coming from a family of actresses, singers, doctors, professors and teachers, Chilean intellectual property and environmental law specialist Federico Simon came to New Zealand three years ago for its people, the idyllic lifestyle and the law.

“It’s doesn’t take a genius to see why so many people wish to live in New Zealand. I’ve been happy here since the very first moment I stepped off the plane,” he says.

Mr Simon decided to pursue a career in intellectual property as he saw a trajectory that included travel.

Intellectual property allowed him to live and work in Argentina and Hamberg, Germany, but alongside his IP work in New Zealand, it was the welcoming environment that the Tauranga Community Law Centre offered, which was why he chose to set up camp in the Bay of Plenty for good.

“My first career choice and only choice was to become a lawyer particularly environmental law and civil law.

The law has allowed me to have an opinion on many issues and through this, I’ve helped people less fortunate than many. Life has to be about others and improving the way we live.

“It’s always on mind to help the community in some way and to give something back as I feel this is my country now, so I must use my skills accordingly.”

Unlike Chile and other countries where he’s lived, New Zealand is special because it’s not very litigious.

“Perhaps it is because there’s more of an emphasis on community spirit and finding positive solutions. I’ve noticed people are very eager to solve issues quickly and effectively. When there’s a conflict, you see people approaching the other party directly to come to some sort of agreement. I think this mentality demonstrates the New Zealand spirit in the way they do business and the lifestyle.

“In some countries, it is usual to sue people straight away in the first instance. I may be an outsider in New Zealand but the problems I’ve experienced disappear here. Bridges are easily built so people can cross them and find a solution.”

Along with his community law work, Federico works as a management consultant for a Wellington company that deals with trade between New Zealand and Latin America.

In terms of trade, New Zealand has always been very focused on Asian markets, but it is Latin America that

❝ It’s doesn’t take a genius to see why so many people wish to live in New Zealand

is increasingly becoming important as a trade partner especially in light of the recent Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement which includes Chile as one of the eight partners, he says.

“New Zealand has a huge opportunity because Latin America is a good market and it’s a big market, and they’re very keen to initiate business. Initiating those connections is the hardest part.

“I feel my skills, background and passions are ideally suited here, especially because of the growing relationships between New Zealand and Latin America.”

In September this year, Federico was asked to present a paper at the International Colloquium Union of Nature (ICUN) in Jakarta, Indonesia. It was titled “The Legal Protection of the Coastal Marine Biodiversity”.

His next step is to complete the New Zealand accrediting process and set up practice in this country. ▪

17

Our Profession, Our People

LawTalk 879 · 4 December 2015

Musical celebration of Magna Carta

On the move

Mary Crimp

Catherine Gilvray

Mary Crimp has been made a partner of Harmans Lawyers. Mary specialises in civil and commercial litigation, insolvency and debt recovery, insurance litigation, estate litigation, PPPR Act applications and Amy Hyland employment disputes. Amy Hyland and Catherine Gilvray have been appointed senior associates of the firm. Amy leads a team that specialises in property, commercial law, private client and asset protection matters. Catherine is a senior lawyer in the firm’s commercial and property team.

Mere King has joined Buddle Findlay’s Auckland office as a senior associate in the litigation team. Mere specialises in employment law, advising on all aspects of employment law, including drafting and reviewing Mere King employment agreements, policies and procedures and advising on personal grievances, restructures and disciplinary matters.

Scott Wight

Celebrating the 800th anniversary of the sealing of the Magna Carta will be a feature of the 2015 Counsel in Concert.

Presented by Crown Law, Counsel in Concert will be held at St Andrew’s on the Terrace, Wellington at 12:15 and 5:30pm on 15 December.

The centrepiece of the concert is Kurt Weill’s Ballad of Magna Carta – a 15 minute cantata for orchestra, choir and soloists dramatically telling the story of the sealing of the Magna Carta in 1215. It is believed that the Counsel in Concert will be the New Zealand premiere of this work.

Ballad of Magna Carta features the grumpy, gouty king reluctantly forced into signing the Magna Carta by his rebellious barons. Roger Wilson will sing the role of King John and John Beaglehole is the narrator.

The concert will feature works

associated with freedom and personal liberty, including Verdi’s Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves and Beethoven’s Ode to Joy from his 9th Symphony.

Counsel in Concert has been running since 2009. The choir and orchestra are comprised of lawyers from throughout the Wellington region and law staff from Crown Law, augmented by members of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and Orchestra Wellington.

Entry is by donation. All proceeds from the concerts will be donated to the Child Cancer Foundation, thanks to the generosity of the concert sponsors: Simpson Grierson, Thomson Reuters, Greg Kelly Law, DLA Piper, Tripe Matthews & Feist, Lambton Chambers Barristers, Rachael Dewar Law, New Zealand Law Society, Duncan Cotterill, Lambton Goods, Fyfe & Doherty and WCM Legal.

Rob Andersen

Blenheim firm Gascoigne Wicks has promoted Scott Wight to senior associate and Rob Andersen to associate. Scott and Rob both work in the commercial/conveyancing team which covers a broad range of legal issues including property, finance, commercial, trusts and wills.

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4/06/15 1:41 PM

Our Profession, Our People

Welcome to the profession The New Zealand Law Society welcomes the following recently admitted lawyers to the profession:

4 December 2015 · LawTalk 879

New committee convenor

Auckland Tamara Louise Webster

Rotorua Te Kahui Ropina Manahi Theresa Momoisea Nehsha Georgena Moynihan Michelle Anne Urquhart

Hawke’s Bay Kris Anthony Dender Rosemary Margaret Frendin

World record in his sights Waikato University law student Tim Chittock hopes to set a world record cycling the Indian Golden Quadrilateral.

He will attempt to set a Guinness World Record for cycling this 5,846km road network, starting from Delhi on 18 February.

Tim Chittock, who aims to break a world cycling record.

To set a new world record, Tim will have to cycle 300km a day to make the distance within 20 days. He will travel between Chennai, Kolkata, Delhi, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Bhubaneswar, Jaipur, Kanpur, Pune, Surat, Guntur, Vijayawada, and Visakhapatnam. The record is measured in days, hours, minutes and seconds to the nearest 0.001 seconds.

The 24-year-old has just completed an LLB with a second major in Economics

and says he was contacted by Guinness and asked if he’d like to give the record a shot.

“I thought it would be a good thing to do over the summer. My mum’s freaking out, but my dad’s okay with it. I’d really like to set a world record, but I’ve been warned the most difficult things about the trip could be being chased by dogs with rabies and avoiding getting sick. I’ve also heard the roads are terrible with lots of potholes and tons of traffic that’s out of control.”

He says the reason he loves these kinds of adventures is that even though at the time they’re hard going, there are highlights along the way. “Some of it will be hell, but even small things such as having a shower, and seeing the dawn and dusk can be magic.”

In order to comply with Guinness requirements, Tim will have to keep a log book to record distance covered, and people he meets who can verify he’s been to each location. In each city he will have to meet up with a policeman or city official and get a photo of himself with a landmark. He will need to collect photographic evidence and at least 10 minutes of video footage each day. The cities can be visited in any order and the entire route must be tracked on GPS. ▪

Jason McHerron

Wellington barrister Jason McHerron is the new convenor of the New Zealand Law Society’s Public and Administrwative Law Committee.

Mr McHerron succeeds Justice Matthew Palmer QC, who was sworn in as a High Court judge on 27 October.

Following his admission in 1996, Mr McHerron joined Russell McVeagh, where he worked as a solicitor until 1999.

He then moved to the Crown Law Office for nearly seven years before joining the independent bar in 2006.

In his practice, Mr McHerron focuses primarily on public law, commercial, regulatory and competition litigation.

He has appeared in all of New Zealand’s general courts, as well as in specialist tribunals in New Zealand and overseas.

As well as serving as a member of the Public and Administrative Law Committee, Mr McHerron has been a faculty member of the NZLS CLE Ltd Litigation Skills Programme.

He is also an author, including being a co-author since 2007 of McGechan on Procedure (Thomson Reuters), co-authoring (with Ross Carter and Ryan Malone) Subordinate Legislation in New Zealand (LexisNexis 2013), and co-authoring (with Ross Carter) Statutory Interpretation – a 2012 Guide, an NZLS CLE seminar booklet. Mr McHerron was also a co-presenter of NZLS CLE’s nationwide seminar and webinar on this topic.

He has been appointed an investigator under the Gas Governance (Compliance) Regulations 2008 and an adjudicator for the Motor Vehicle Disputes Tribunal. ▪

19

Women in the law

LawTalk 879 · 4 December 2015

New Women’s Advisory Panel Seven members of the New Zealand Law Society’s Women’s Advisory Panel have now been appointed. The full panel will be announced soon.

This new group has been established with the aim of considering initiatives that will make a real difference to improving the retention and advancement of women in the legal profession.

The Law Society Board has asked the Women’s Advisory Panel to consider issues and initiatives such as: ▪▪ embedding unconscious bias training in other training programmes; ▪▪ encouraging men in the legal profession to champion change; ▪▪ reducing the attrition of young female lawyers; ▪▪ gender audits; and ▪▪ equitable briefing policies.

Law Society President Chris Moore will chair the new panel.

When LawTalk asked Mr Moore why a man was chairing the Women’s Advisory Group, he said that there were two main reasons.

One of his major aims as Law Society President was to develop initiatives that would encourage the retention and advancement of women in the legal profession.

In addition, “this is an issue not just for women but for the profession as a whole. Clearly, it is vital that we include predominantly outstanding women on the panel,

❝ This new group has been established with the aim of considering initiatives that will make a real difference to improving the retention and advancement of women in the legal profession

Chris Moore (Chair)

The College of Law New Zealand would like to thank all of the firms who have participated in our Advanced Business Skills training. We look forward to working with them all again in 2016: Amicorp New Zealand Limited

ASB

Brookfields Lawyers

Buddle Findlay

Carter Holt Harvey Pulp & Paper Ltd

DLA Piper New Zealand

Fidelity Life

Fletcher Building

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Glaister Ennor

Inland Revenue

Kauri Asset Management

Kiwi Rail

Meredith Connell

Mighty River

Ministry of Health

Minter Ellison

New Zealand Customs Service

New Zealand Superannuation Fund Limited

Pacific Financial Derivatives Limited

REINZ

Russell McVeagh

Simpson Grierson

Trustees Executors Limited

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Waitemata Community Law Centre

VISIT US collaw.ac.nz/abs

20

EMAIL US cle@collaw.ac.nz

CALL US +64 9 300 3151

but alongside that, we also need to have men in the profession championing the issue. That is why two of the members of the Women’s Advisory Panel are men.”

While the new group will be considering initiatives over the coming weeks and months, one programme is already being put together.

Building on the success of its first Women in Law conference in 2014, NZLS CLE Ltd will run a second conference: Women in Law – Career by Design. This full-day conference will run in Auckland on 11 April 2016 and Wellington on 12 April 2016. The Wellington event will also be webstreamed.

The conference will present a practical programme that helps women build upon their own personal strengths and resilience in order to be prepared, confident and pro-active in seeking leadership positions.

The seven members appointed to date are:

The New Zealand Law Society President, Mr Moore is a partner of specialist projects f i r m G r e e nw o o d Roche in Auckland.

As well as being President, Mr Moore has held a number of other Law Society roles.

He was an inaugural member of the Law Society’s Property Law Section when it was established in 2000 and was the section’s chair from 2004 until 2013. He was the inaugural President of the Law Society’s Auckland branch from 2009 until March 2013, and Vice-President (Auckland) in 2012 and 2013.

Mr Moore has more than 35 years’ experience spanning a range of industry sectors including commercial property, hospitality, manufacturing, retail, local government and the public sector.

He regularly acts for overseas and institutional investors acquiring property and commercial interests in New Zealand and in the ongoing management and administration of those investments.

Women in the law

Mr Moore started his career in a mid-sized Auckland firm before moving to the Bay of Plenty where he was a partner in the firm now known as Hamertons Lawyers Limited.

He moved back to Auckland in 1987 and was a partner at Russell McVeagh from 1989 to 1999. He then moved to Meredith Connell, where he was a partner for 13 years. He has been a partner at Greenwood Roche since April 2013.

Mr Moore is married to Heather and they have three children, two of whom are lawyers.

Ann Brennan Ms Brennan is Chief Legal Advisor at the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, a position she has held since May 2013.

At MBIE she leads a talented and committed team of about 70 lawyers and technical specialists who support a fascinating and varied business focused on growing the New Zealand economy to provide a better standard of living for all New Zealanders. She is a member of the Government Legal Network Advisory Board.

Early in her career Ms Brennan was a litigator with Kensington Swan and Chapman Tripp. She counts herself fortunate that this was a time where it was possible to cut your teeth on a wide range of litigation. While working predominantly in the commercial area Ann has enjoyed a variety of work at all levels, including employment, medical, insurance, corporate and financial services.

Over time Ms Brennan’s focus became more commercial

4 December 2015 · LawTalk 879

(From left): Coroner Brigitte Windley, Chief Coroner Deborah Marshall, and Coroner Anna Tutton at the swearing in ceremony for Coroner Windley, held at the Wellington District Court on 23 November

Gender balance on bench For the first time in New Zealand a bench has achieved gender balance. This happened with the appointment of Wellington lawyer Brigitte Windley as a Coroner (see page 16).

With the final sitting of former Wellington Coroner Garry Evans on 19 November, and Coroner Windley’s swearing in on 23 November, a majority of Coroners are now women.

From 23 November nine of New Zealand’s coroners are women and eight are men, New Zealand Law Society President Chris Moore says.

“We’re obviously not trying to get into a numbers game, but this is a very important milestone along the road to gender equality and diversity in the legal profession.

“It is one to celebrate and the Law Society congratulates Attorney-General Christopher Finlayson on this achievement.

“Women make up 30% of the permanent judiciary in our other courts but comprise almost half of practising lawyers. The Law Society will continue to advocate for and support more women on the bench,” Mr Moore says. ▪

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Women in the law

LawTalk 879 · 4 December 2015

and a one-year stint at Westpac as Senior Counsel turned into six years. In 2007 she was appointed General Counsel of Public Trust where she was a member of the executive team and responsible for the legal, risk, compliance, regulatory affairs and customer quality functions. She was also Board Secretary and director of a number of subsidiaries.

Married to a lawyer, Ann is mother to twins studying law.

She encourages full participation in the legal workforce and has been a regular presenter at events promoting diversity.

David Campbell Mr Campbell is a partner at Kensington Swan where he is one of the firm’s Auckland litigation partners. He is also a member of the firm’s Board.

He has been with Kensington Swan for the last 14 years and in practice for 22 years. Previously, he worked for Morrison Kent and in London (working mainly on defamation and extradition matters).

David’s present practice involves contentious commercial and civil matters, and common law, work for individuals, community organisations, and corporates. In particular, he has been involved in major Commerce Act litigation and significant product liability matters. He also routinely advises on liability insurance issues, mostly for construction clients.

David was recently re-elected to the Law Society’s Auckland branch Council and is also involved in the Law Society’s Civil Litigation and Tribunals Committee. He is a former editor of Brookers’ Civil Litigation Practice and Procedure.

Kensington Swan was recognised as one of the top 50 leading companies for women in APEC, according to a study published in late 2014. The study, undertaken by

APEC’s Policy Partnership on Women and the Economy, acknowledged three New Zealand companies: Kensington Swan, Westpac New Zealand, and the Bank of New Zealand.

Mr Campbell is married with two children.

Anita Chan QC A former Chair of the Law Society’s Family Law Section (2000-2001), Ms Chan is a Dunedin barrister practising from Princes Chambers.

After graduating from Otago University in 1984, Ms Chan joined various Dunedin law firms working in criminal, civil and family law and tribunals. She went to the independent bar in 1997 and was made a Queen’s Counsel in 2014.

At Princes Chambers, Ms Chan leads a team of specialist family law barristers. Together, they handle the full range of family law disputes. Her practice is in complex property and child disputes, and includes representation of children, a role she particularly enjoys. She is often retained as counsel in cases involving farms, trusts, high-value assets, and complex asset structures. She is an expert in cases involving international family law issues.

Ms Chan is one of just a handful of New Zealand lawyers to have been appointed a Fellow of the prestigious International Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers. This is a worldwide association of practising lawyers who are recognised by their peers as the most experienced and skilled family law specialists in their respective countries.

She was elected as a Governor of the Academy in 2008, appointed as its Parliamentarian in 2011, and served as its Vice-President from 2012 to 2014 .

Ms Chan is a director of FairWay Resolution Ltd. She

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Women in the law

4 December 2015 · LawTalk 879

was a foundation director of the New Zealand Law Society Continuing Legal Education Board. She is also a former convenor of the Otago Women Lawyers’ Society (OWLS).

Together with her husband, Ms Chan is the owner of Monarch Wildlife Tours and Cruises, which provides guided tours of the Otago peninsula and wildlife.

Tiana Epati Ms Epati is the Law Society’s Gisborne branch President. She is also a member of the Law Society’s Criminal Law Committee, having been appointed to that role in September this year.

A criminal defence lawyer, Ms Epati graduated from Auckland University Photo: Gisborne Herald in 2000 with a BA in philosophy and history and an LLB. She began her working life as a lawyer with Meredith Connell in Auckland, where she was a Crown prosecutor for four years.

In 2004 she moved to Wellington, working as a Crown prosecutor at Luke Cunningham Clere.

She moved from criminal work to working in the public law team at a boutique Wellington law firm on a one-year fixed-term contract. However she found she missed the criminal law work and returned to Luke Cunningham and Clere.

After having her first child, she decided she wanted to take a step back from conducting serious criminal trials with a young child, so in 2008 she moved to the Crown Law Office, working in the Criminal Process Team appearing as lead counsel on appeals to the Court of Appeal and as counsel assisting in the Supreme Court. In that role, she appeared as senior appellate counsel in a significant number of appeals against conviction and sentence to the Court of Appeal.

Tiana and her family relocated to Gisborne in October 2012.

She has been with Rishworth Wall & Mathieson, working mainly as a criminal defence lawyer since then.

As well as her criminal specialty, Ms Epati is interested in human rights law, and recently completed a post-graduate intensive paper in human rights litigation at Auckland University. She is the first Gisborne President of Pacifika descent.

Phillipa Muir Ms Muir is a partner at Simpson Grierson in Auckland, where she heads the e mp l oym e nt l aw group. She acts for many of New Zealand’s largest employers and advises on both contentious and non-contentious matters.

In both 2012 and 2014, Ms Muir won the Best in Workplace Relations Award at the Australasian Women in Business Awards.

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For a number of years Ms Muir has been recognised internationally as a leading lawyer by Asia Pacific Legal 500, Employment; Chambers Asia-Pacific, Employment; and The International Who’s Who, Legal Labour & Employment/Pensions and Benefits.

A board member of Global Employment Law Alliance, Ms Muir also chairs both the Fletcher Building Employee Educational Fund and Auckland Writers Festival and she is on the Board of Trustees of Auckland Grammar School.

She is a guest lecturer on employment law at Auckland University’s Law Faculty, and is a co-author of the Thomson Reuters published legal texts Employment Law and Recruitment and Termination. Ms Muir is married with two sons.

Liesle Theron The convenor of the Law Society’s Law Reform Committee, Ms Theron is a partner of Meredith Connell in Wellington.

She is a commercial and public law litigator who advises public and private-sector clients across a range of fields and has appeared in courts at all levels, in tribunals, before Select Committees and as junior counsel assisting a Commission of Inquiry.

After obtaining a BA from the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa, Ms Theron moved to Wellington and in 1999 she graduated as Victoria University’s top law student. She worked as a solicitor for Chapman Tripp from 1999 to 2002.

As the 2002 Ethel Benjamin Scholar and a Fulbright Scholar, she studied at New York University, graduating with an LLM in May 2003. While in New York, Ms Theron also worked as an intern at the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Early Warning and Contingency Planning Unit.

After she returned to New Zealand, she worked as in-house counsel at Telecom New Zealand Ltd, before joining Thorndon Chambers where she worked as a barrister from 2004 until she moved to Meredith Connell in 2014.

She is a contributing author of Professional Responsibility in New Zealand, Morison’s Company Law and Heath & Whale on Insolvency, and author of Guide to Company Liquidation (all published by LexisNexis). She has six children and step-children between the ages of 4 and 28. ▪

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For a confidential discussion about your client, call us on 09 377 4769 or email admin@defence.co.nz www.defence.co.nz

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14/10/15 2:45 PM

Chris Moore New Zealand Law Society President

Kathryn Beck President-Elect and Vice-President, Auckland

John Unsworth Vice-President, Central North Island

Mark Wilton Vice-President, Wellington

Allister Davis Vice-President, South Island

Nerissa Barber Wellington branch President

Mark Bullock Whanganui branch President

Tim Jones Auckland branch President

Toni Green Southland branch President

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W ish i

Tiana Epati Gisborne branch President

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an

Rajan Rai Taranaki branch President

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Alison Souness Hawke’s Bay branch President

16 20 Simon Gaines Marlborough branch President Ben Vanderkolk Manawatu branch President

Kerry Burroughs Waikato branch President Rob Somerville Nelson branch President

Dr Kate Elkin ILANZ President

Frazer Barton Otago branch President Duncan Terris Property Law Section Chair

Prue Robertson CanterburyWestland branch Vice-President

Dr Allan Cooke Family Law Section Chair

Practising well Counterproductive

How stress makes you fat

Photo by Filippo CC-By-NC-SA

By Raewyn Ng If you’ve been dieting since your teenage years and you’re exercising like mad, the calories in/calories out equation that’s been around for so long says the results should be clear.

If you’re not seeing the results you expect given the time, effort and sacrifice you’ve put in over the years, if you have “stubborn fat”, it could be that it’s far more complicated than simply calories in/calories out.

Sure, the calories in and out equation is still relevant but there’s growing recognition there could be more to it. Hormones are complicated and when they get out of balance, they start affecting all the systems in our body including weight regulation.

All our focus on fighting the fat by starving ourselves and partaking in endless exercise over the years could have done more harm than good.

If you lead a life full of constant stress it’s likely to be impairing your weight loss efforts.

We tend to think of stress as psychological – stress over work, money, family and relationships; but it can also be physiological – lack of sleep, inflammation, chronic infections, exposure to environmental toxins, inadequate nutrition and over- or under-exercise.

Raewyn Ng

❝ If you lead a life full of constant stress it’s likely to be impairing your weight loss efforts

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If you’re already highly stressed about life, work, family and finances, putting strenuous exercise on top (which is simply a physical stressor) only adds to your total stress load and can be counterproductive.

When the stress response is triggered, adrenaline is released and prepares for the “fight or flight” response. Digestion and other “non vital” functions decrease while blood pressure and heart rate increase as your body prepares to fight or flee.

We’re designed to cope well with this sort of acute stress. Historically we would escape the danger over a short period of time. In nature, two to four minutes would produce some kind of result from the (hypothetical) tiger chasing us. We’d either fight or flee successfully or not. Presuming we’re successful, our stress hormones dissipate as we return back to a normal resting state until the next threat comes along.

Cortisol is released in times of stress and one of its roles is to encourage you to refuel after responding to the stress. All that energy expended fighting the tiger needs to be replenished.

As the stress we face these days is typically psychological rather than physical, it requires little energy expenditure to relieve the stress so the urge to eat after the stress is gone is redundant.

Wider effects Chronic elevated cortisol levels also has a number of wider effects throughout the body. These include: ▪▪ raising blood sugar levels and making your cells less sensitive to insulin; ▪▪ increasing belly fat and fatty liver; ▪▪ reducing the ability to burn fat; ▪▪ increasing the rate of fat storage; ▪▪ causing hormonal imbalances by disrupting the HPA (hypothalamus, pituitary, adrenal) axis; ▪▪ encouraging constant hunger and sugar cravings; and ▪▪ reducing dehydroepiandrostenedione, or DHEA (the precursor to repair and sex hormones), testosterone and growth hormone levels.

Of course, not all stress is bad, but when you’re under constant stress over a prolonged period of time, your body produces these stress hormones at the expense of ADVERTISEMENT

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Practising well

4 December 2015 · LawTalk 879

your rest and repair hormones.

Counterbalanced Your stress hormones and repair hormones counterbalance each other. When stress hormones are being produced, your rest and repair hormones are not.

Pregnenolone is the precursor to both your stress and your repair hormones. In times of chronic stress, pregnenolone is diverted to produce additional cortisol and adrenaline, leaving little or none for the production of repair hormones (this process is call the Pregnenolone Steal). It’s the rest and repair hormones that you need to be working to help you lose fat.

It’s during the recovery process that your body will repair tissue, get rid of metabolic waste, restore optimal neural function, and nutrient, chemical and hormone balance, strengthen immunity and ultimately signal to the body to let go of excess fat.

Intensive exercise while in a chronic state of stress supresses the rest and repair processes and can be counterproductive to fat loss.

If you’re one of those people who is

❝ Shifting the focus away from losing weight and towards being healthy will help to rebalance your body systems

constantly under stress from various aspects of your life and you do high volumes of exercise but you’re not seeing the fat loss you think you should, this could be the problem.

Finding a balance However, this doesn’t mean that you need to stop exercising.

It just means you need to recognise your physiological stress load and manage your exercise and lifestyle more intelligently to find a balance – reducing volume and adding breathing and working in exercises, restorative yoga, tai chi or chi kung and addressing other lifestyle factors like sleep, hydration, nutrition to manage stress.

Shifting the focus away from losing weight and towards being healthy will help to rebalance your body systems and encourage your rest and repair hormones to do their thing.

If you’ve been running on empty for a while now, the process will take time, a shift in mindset and a change in lifestyle. But if you’ve been slowly reducing your calorie intake to next to nothing over the years, and the weight is still steadily piling on, what have you got to lose by taking a chance on a new approach? ▪ Raewyn Ng was formerly a legal advisor at Historic Places Trust, now Heritage NZ, and before that worked for Parliamentary Services. She is now a movement coach with an interest in wellbeing and holistic health, managing stress and living a balanced lifestyle.

See www.mybod.co.nz.

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27

LawTalk 879 · 4 December 2015

Legal information

Nevill’s Will Drafting Handbook, 7th Edition

By Sarah Parsons and Nicky Richardson Reviewed by Jacintha Atkinson Nevill’s Will Drafting Handbook (7th edition) updates practitioners on developments since the 6th edition, which was published in 2011. This book is written by Sarah Parsons and Nicky Richardson who are both lawyers (albeit Nicky is now retired), so it is practical and designed to be the “go to” book for all practitioners when drafting wills for clients. The law stated in this edition is as at 30 April 2015.

Since the first edition was published in 1948, this book has always been intended to be used on a day-to-day basis by practitioners who take instructions to draft wills. It is designed to be practical and provide guidance around the wording of clauses, and is not intended to give commentary or case law. The idea is that the book can provide up-todate precedents to be used in a will document, and it also comes with a CD-ROM to allow you to have an electronic database of up-to-date will precedents.

The purpose of this book is to ensure any legislative changes to the Wills Act 2007, along with any anticipated changes, are taken into consideration when providing precedents for practitioners to use when drafting wills.

One of the biggest changes envisaged in this area relates to the findings from the Minister of Senior Citizens report regarding the 2007 Amendments specific to Enduring Powers of Attorney (EPOAs). The chapters around EPOAs have therefore been retained in this edition as often these documents are drafted at the same time as a will.

The book has a detailed Table of Contents, along with a Table of Cases, Statutes and then a Table of Forms and Precedents. As mentioned above, all sample clauses and sample wills are included on a CD-ROM, and correspond to the paragraph numbering used in the book.

The book is split into seven chapters. The first three relate to wills and cover ‘Interviewing the Will-maker’, ‘Making the Will’, and ‘Opening Clauses and the Formal Elements of a Will’. Chapters four to six relate to Enduring Powers of Attorney and include tips on ‘Interviewing the Donor’ and a section containing ‘Special Clauses’.

If I was to use this resource to draft a will, my personal preference would be to start with the Table of Forms and Precedents. From that list I can scroll down and quite quickly find the scenario for which I am wanting the

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wording of a specific clause. For example, if I am looking for an ‘Appointment of Guardians’ clause, I can scroll down, see that I need to go to Chapter Three – clause 3.6.

The only negative to finding a precedent clause this way is that there is no quick reference to which page number in the book I then need to go to. However, some clause numbers are printed at the top of each page, so it didn’t take too long for me to find the page I required.

Clause 3.6 then gave me three options for guardian clauses, and I could directly copy the appropriate wording into my will. The footnote on the first option also helpfully referred me to s 26 of the Care of Children Act 2004. I then obtained a copy of that section on “Testamentary Guardians” and could then incorporate that legislation into my explanation to a client in regards to how testamentary guardians and the Family Court system all interplay.

The book also has helpful suggestions along the way as to any other tweaks which may be applicable depending on the situation. The biggest message I got from this book, is to ensure the final draft will is read over and to ensure the clauses used are appropriate and tweaked (if necessary) to cover the specific scenario for that client.

The very nature of copying and pasting precedents can lead to carelessness, so a high level of care is required when drafting such important documents.

Overall, this book and CD-ROM are immensely helpful for all practitioners who are taking instructions from clients and drafting both wills and Enduring Powers of Attorney.

This is a must-have for all law offices and you might find yourselves fighting over who gets to keep it in whose office. I know I’ll be holding onto my copy very tightly! ▪ Jacintha Atkinson is an associate solicitor with Nelson law firm Richmond Law. She is experienced in advising on property and commercial law matters and wills, trusts and powers of attorney.

Legal information

4 December 2015 · LawTalk 879

New Books Public Law in the Age of Statutes: Essays in Honour of Dennis Pearce Edited by Anthony J Connolly and Daniel Stewart The nine essays have been prepared by the presenters at a conference in Canberra in October 2014. The essays celebrate the career and scholarship of Professor Dennis Pearce of the Australian National University. By members of the judiciary, senior lawyers and academics, the essays look at current issues relating to statutory interpretation, judicial review, delegated legislation, law reform and the culture of government.

Federation Press, 978-1-760020-39-2, November 2015, 236 pages, hardcover, A$115.

The New Zealand Supreme Court: The First Ten Years Edited by Andrew Stockley and Michael Littlewood This brings together the papers presented at the November 2014 conference hosted by the Auckland Law School to mark the first decade of the Supreme Court. The papers have been refined to take account of the discussions which took place on their presentation. The first part of the book outlines the establishment, role and functioning of the court, while the second part addresses the emerging jurisprudence of the court in the most important areas of New Zealand law.

LexisNexis NZ Ltd, 978-1-927313-10-7, November 2015, 521 pages, paperback and e-book.

Why Lawyers Are Like Lobsters (and other lessons on surviving in the law)

By Marcus Elliott The author says this is a handbook for all lawyers, past, present and future, even those who are not yet born. He claims that it holds the secrets of absolute and total success as a lawyer.

LexisNexis NZ Ltd, 978-1-927313-58-9, November 2015, paperback, $50 (GST included, p&h excluded).

Domain Name Commission seeks comment on .nz WHOIS In the technology world, WHOIS is one of the more self explanatory words you’ll come across. Simply put, it’s the search protocol that lets you find out who the registrant (holder) of a domain name is.

The WHOIS for .nz domain names is a publicly available search service that allows people to check registration information for a .nz domain name. This includes registrant, technical and admin contact details.

As part of a two-stage review of the .nz WHOIS, the Domain Name Commission (DNC) has launched the second of two public consultations – asking for people’s views on what information should be displayed in the WHOIS and how.

The key question being asked by the Commission is “whether the current range of data provided for a WHOIS search should continue on the same basis as it is now”. Comment is additionally sought on what information should be disclosed in response to a WHOIS search, who disclosures should be made to and how information should be provided.

Importantly, if the WHOIS should work differently when it comes to what information is disclosed, DNC is interested in hearing people’s views on what an alternative approach might look like.

A consultation paper has been produced and can be read at https:// dnc.org.nz/whois-review. Submissions can made via email to policies@dnc. org.nz, or posted to PO Box 11 881, Manners Street, Wellington 6142. The closing date for submissions is Friday 29 January 2016. ▪

Ross Asset Management Ltd (in liquidation): liquidators’ claims Do you act for former investors of Ross Asset Management Limited (in liquidation) (RAM) who received their investment back in part, or whole, before liquidation? Have your clients received notice from the liquidators of likely claims to recover their withdrawal?

The liquidators of the RAM group of companies have brought three test cases against investors who withdrew their investments before the liquidation. The liquidators have also signalled that, subject to the outcome of those cases (one of which is currently under appeal to the Court of Appeal), they may take action against a further 200 investors to claw back some or all of their investments. In addition, the liquidators have recently written to a group of investors seeking agreement to extend the time-frame for clawback claims through a stand-still agreement.

Gibson Sheat would like to hear from investors or their advisers who may wish to join a group of RAM investors facing similar claims. Gibson Sheat has assembled a specialist legal team including Justin Smith QC, who is lead counsel acting on the case under appeal, Andru Isac and Jack Wass of Stout Street Chambers. The benefits of joining the group include representation by a dedicated team with existing knowledge of the current litigation, efficiencies and cost savings, familiarity with the liquidators’ approach, and flexibility (there are likely to be bespoke defences for each investor such as change of position).

Investors can register their interest by completing the contact form on Gibson Sheat’s website:http://www.gibsonsheat. com/news-and-publications/latest-news/ram-investors. Registration involves no commitment by the investor. They will receive reports on the claw-back action and any proposals for the conduct of the defence of the claim. There will also be opportunities for investors’ usual solicitors to remain involved.

For enquiries please contact Edward Cox on 04 916 6309 or edward.cox@gibsonsheat.com

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LawTalk 879 · 4 December 2015

Looking the gift horse in the mouth Collateral rewards and gifts

Mark Colthart is pleased to announce that from 1 December 2015 he will be practising from chambers at Level 31, Vero Centre, 48 Shortland Street, Auckland 1142. All other contact details will remain the same.

to rule 5.9 was qualified and allowed for a referral reward in respect of client borrowing or investment provided the reward was fair and reasonable and the client was fully informed, consented and had been advised about other relevant sources of funds or investments.1 There is no equivalent exception in the current RCCC. Client referral schemes are one example of the type of arrangement which is captured by the rule. The Ethics Committee recently looked at such an arrangement under which a lawyer proposed offering a reward to a third party for referrals received.

The committee observed that the rule is unqualified and there is no express exception permitting waiver by a client.

Referral arrangements involving incentives have the potential to establish a close relationship between the law firm and referrer, creating a risk that the law firm’s loyalties will be divided. This is inconsistent with the broader principle reflected in rule 5 that a lawyer must be free from compromising influences.

The concept of “reward” is not limited to financial payment but could include overseas travel, event tickets, vouchers, reciprocal client referrals or endorsement.

Schemes framed to reward professionals – including lawyers for referring clients to external corporate bodies – are promoted at times. Participation by a lawyer in such a scheme would not appear permissible under the current rule. Any breach of the rule could not be cured by informed consent of the client involved.

As an aside, a potential breach of the Secret Commissions Act 1910 may also be established in circumstances where a client was not advised of any referral or reward arrangement between a lawyer and third party.

Mark is available to accept instructions as counsel in commercial and civil litigation and arbitration, particularly in contract, property and construction disputes, and appointment as arbitrator in commercial arbitrations and as adjudicator in claims under the Construction Contracts Act.

Gifts-acceptance must be consistent with trust and confidence

By Charlotte Walker Independence is a cornerstone underlying all other obligations owed by a lawyer. One aspect of the principle of independence is encapsulated in rule 5 of the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act (Lawyers: Conduct and Client Care) Rules 2008 (RCCC): “A lawyer must be independent and free from compromising influences or loyalties when providing services to his or her clients.”

The Law Society from time to time receives queries about the permissible parameters of reciprocal and financial arrangements between lawyers, their clients and third parties. This article provides a brief outline of two rules which are relevant to these concerns.

Rules 5.8 and 5.9 of the RCCC relate to the acceptance of gifts and collateral rewards by lawyers. These rules reflect that a lawyer must avoid potentially compromising influences or matters which could cloud their objectivity.

Collateral rewards – client consent no cure Rule 5.9 provides an unqualified prohibition upon a lawyer receiving or offering any reward or inducement from or to a third party in respect of referrals made, advice given, products or services purchased or any work done for a client .The only proviso is that the rule specifically allows for arrangements under which a third party has agreed to pay or contribute to normal fees payable by a client with the knowledge and consent of the client.

Traditional arrangements involving “legal fee contributions” from lenders or a landlord bearing the cost of renewal documentation would typically fall within the proviso to the rule.

The prohibition on collateral rewards in the predecessor

MARK COLTHART

Charlotte Walker

The concept of 'reward' is not limited to financial payment

BARRISTER & ARBITRATOR BA, LLM (Hons), FAMINZ (Arb), FCIArb

Contact Mark at 09 379 6017 ▪ mark@markcolthart.co.nz ▪ www.markcolthart.co.nz Level 31 Vero Centre, 48 Shortland Street ▪ PO Box 535, Shortland Street, Auckland 1140

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The relationship of lawyer and client is fiduciary in nature and is based on the utmost trust and confidence which must

Photo by Mark Seton CC-By-NC, https://flic.kr/p/xrdtLu

never be abused (rule 5.1).

Receiving occasional Christmas goodies or a bottle of wine from a happy client is an accepted and gratifying part of a professional practice. However, a lawyer must not accept any gift where acceptance would be inconsistent with the lawyer-client relationship and could potentially interfere with a lawyer’s independence and ability to remain objective.

Under rule 5.8, any lawyer proposing to accept a significant gift may only do so after the client has taken prior independent advice. The rule extends to gifts given by a client to a person the lawyer has a close personal relationship with or a member of the lawyer’s practice.

A lack of absolute clarity around acceptance of a financial “gift” or reward may lead to potential client concerns down the line. For example, in the event of a relationship breakdown between lawyer and client, issues could arise about the status of the payment and under the reasonable fees rule (rule 9).

In addition, if the “gift” status of a payment is later disputed, this could lead to an alleged breach of s 110 of the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006, had the funds not been paid into a nominated trust account.2 Despite the option of independent legal advice for a client, there may be circumstances where the nature of the gift offered or the imbalance in the relationship is such that a lawyer will be unable to accept the gift and continue to meet their ethical obligations.

Taking care Any lawyer considering entering an arrangement involving a third party or accepting a gift from a client should carefully consider the boundaries of rules 5.8 and 5.9 and the potential professional implications.

A careful approach would include reflecting on whether any arrangement potentially infringes the prohibition in rule 5.9 or the acceptance of a gift could be seen as compromising independence. In the event that a lawyer decides to accept a significant client gift, a clear record of both parties’ understanding of the transaction and referral for independent advice is vital to avoid future difficulties.

Taking advice, if appropriate, from a trusted colleague may be a helpful starting point. Discussing concerns with a member of the Law Society’s Panel of Friends may also be of assistance. (www.lawsociety.org.nz/practiceresources/practising-well/national-friends-panel) ▪ Charlotte Walker is Senior Solicitor Regulatory with the New Zealand Law Society.

1 Rules 1.06 and 4.04 of the Rules of Professional Conduct for Barristers and Solicitors 7th edition (consolidated) 2008 New Zealand Law Society.

2 A recent example may be found in Auckland Standards Committee 5 v Chen [2015] NZLCDT 2 – see discussion by Paul Collins in Professional Responsibility in New Zealand LexisNexis Online Chapter 5 Independence (rr 5-5.12) [90,250] and [90,255].

WANTED › New Zealand Resource Management Appeals (NZRMA) contact Stuart Ryan – stuart@stuartryan.co.nz

31

LawTalk 879 · 4 December 2015

Intimate partner violence The role of risk assessment and information sharing

By Judge Eugene Hyman and Inspector Rob Veale Since the enactment of the vaunted Domestic Violence Act of 1995, there has been an evolution in the understanding of and the response to intimate partner violence (IPV).

Most recently, Justice Minister Amy Adams initiated a comprehensive, multifaceted review of family violence law, with a view to strengthening the legislative response – a reboot if you will, taking into account the plethora of international and national research and experience that is available. To this end, a discussion document was launched seeking input for ideas (https://consultations.justice.govt.nz/ policy/family-violence-law).

With extensive experience in policing and the judiciary, the authors wish to contribute to the dialogue – first, by discussing the use of risk assessment tools in mitigating the incidence of high risk victims, a current focus of the police, and second, by highlighting the significance of risk information sharing at the judicial level. Although the terms domestic violence, family violence and intimate partner violence (IPV) are interchangeable, this article will use the term IPV.

Judge Eugene Hyman

Inspector Rob Veale

Risk assessment Considering the complex psychological and psychosocial characteristics of IPV, namely, the interplay of power, control, and coercion with physical, emotional and economic abuse, risk assessment is a favourable source of guidance for all players involved with IPV. Risk assessment is commonly defined as “the formal application of instruments to assess the likelihood that intimate partner violence will be repeated and escalated.

The term is synonymous with dangerousness assessment

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and encompasses lethality assessment, the use of instruments specifically developed to identify potentially lethal situations.”

(Roehl & Guertin, 2000, p 171) At the risk of oversimplification, consider the current body of knowledge regarding dangerousness and lethality as having been distilled to a cohesive and perhaps more formalised way of identifying and quantifying risk and if abuse/injury will reoccur. The overarching goal is the reduction of lethality and preventing harm. Risk assessment utilises risk factors or markers developed from a variety of research methods including the systematic analyses of homicides, case studies, longitudinal studies and lethality/death reviews. Since the data flows from multiple lines of evidence, the results are robust.

Under the risk assessment paradigm: IPV is proven to be a pattern of behaviour rather than an isolated event or episode.

Moreover, IPV typically escalates. This new focus on the dynamic and changing nature of risk demonstrates a marked departure from relying on static risk markers, which are largely based on socioeconomic factors.

The risk for dangerous or lethal outcomes is not static. This key point cannot be underscored enough.

Risk factors can be viewed as moving along a continuum to the point of dangerousness or, worse, lethality. It is not a linear progression with violence ratcheting up in an orderly manner. Instead, what is clear is that the latest incidence of IPV is different from the last and likely to be different to any future event. Therefore, reliance cannot be placed on the details of past reports to be indicative of what is occurring in the present.

It is imperative that each and every incident of IPV must be viewed de novo by all participants from law enforcement to the Court.

It is evident from the list that the factors coalesce around common themes of history of IPV, disturbing and violent behaviour, personality traits that are obsessive, sadistic, and/or belligerent, threatening posturing and situational factors, access to a gun, etc. Statements made by victims as gathered by police, refuge workers and others on the front lines are the source.

Specifically, does the perpetrator: ▪▪ Live with the victim?

▪▪ Have children and/or stepchildren in the home?

▪▪ Have a history of abuse?

▪▪ Have steady employment?

4 December 2015 · LawTalk 879

▪▪ Use alcohol or other drugs?

▪▪ Have access to a firearm or to other dangerous weapons?

▪▪ Threaten homicide or suicide?

▪▪ Force sex upon the victim or attempt to strangle or “choke” the victim?

▪▪ Control most or all of the victim’s daily activities?

▪▪ Obsess about following or stalking the victim?

▪▪ Have emotional dependence on the victim?

▪▪ Demonstrate violence or abuse of pets?

Some other questions to consider are: ▪▪ Is the violence escalating in frequency and severity?

▪▪ Is the victim afraid of the batterer?

▪▪ Does the victim believe that the batterer is capable of killing her and/or her children?

▪▪ Has the victim contacted law enforcement?

Consider consulting family/friends as they might have made important observations regarding the above factors.

Not exhaustive

a deeper understanding for all who interface with IPV: police, prosecution, judges, probation and custody personnel, child custody evaluators, and refuge staff. Risk assessment provides a common language across a wide range of agencies.

Sharing risk assessments by family and criminal courts From a judicial perspective, important decisions are often made from limited, incomplete or a stale dossier – with the safety of the victims hanging in the balance.

Improving the quality of the information inputs strengthens the decision-making process. Any information that exists on an inter-court basis must be sought, despite court structures that pose barriers to an open pool of knowledge.

To be clear, family and criminal courts operate with different burdens of proof and confidentially requirements.

While these due process protections must be maintained, protocols can nevertheless be established for the safe and appropriate exchange of information while respecting privacy concerns. Striking a balance between safety and privacy concerns is paramount for high-risk cases.

The checklist of lethality factors listed above is not exhaustive. One of these risk factors may be present or all or perhaps none of them are checked. The absence of factors cannot be interpreted as a nullification of imminent danger Criminal court jurisdiction or serve as a basis to deny court protection. In this event, other sources of information are recommended. Service Risk information must permeate, indeed hold sway in, providers who are familiar with the case may have useful every aspect of criminal justice proceedings. Criminal observations. courts are responsible for setting bail, sentencing, and Also, listening to the victim is crucial. Their perception is issuing criminal protective orders. Moreover, they may their reality and only they have heightened sensitivity to be first in line to respond to IPV. Details from the Family their risk of re-victimisation and are uniquely positioned Court, such as the breach of any court orders including bail, to provide observations on the personality, mental health probation conditions and non-completion of intervention and violent behaviour of the perpetrator. Conversely, vicprogrammes, is extremely useful to the criminal court, tim’s assessments could be “off ” if there is a hesitation, a especially with regard to ramping up actions. palpable fear for her safety or a general disinclination to Setting bail get involved with the criminal justice system. A qualified, experienced assessor may be perceptive to nuance and When bail is being set, there are two possible outcomes able to ferret out the truth.

– detainment or release.

Frequently situational factors can be incendiary to an The low-risk options for perpetrators should not be taken already precarious situation. if higher-risk requirements are necessary. Those considered A recent separation, for example, is cause for concern. to be dangerous must be detained.

Many controlling perpetrators who are also emotionally If it is decided that release is deemed appropriate, dependent on their partner may become unhinged to the good behavior by the perpetrator cannot be assumed. point they utter foreboding statements. This dynamic is The perpetrator must be supervised daily by means of reflected in comments such as if “I can’t have her” or “I reporting, electronic monitoring, curfews, protection can’t bear the thought of living without her”. If you add orders, non-association provisions or a combination of to this distressed state, inebriation and access to a gun, the above if necessary. you have a recipe for danger. In these settings, police have the onerous burden to adjudicate and possibly make an arrest.

The benefits of using risk assessment are numerous.

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33

LawTalk 879 · 4 December 2015

Sentencing Risk information is integral to setting conditions of probation including custody considerations and programming conditions (including batterer intervention, substance abuse, mental health, parenting without violence programmes). Substance abuse issues are pernicious in IPV cases.

It is important that those agencies involved with the perpetrator provide frequent written reports to the court regarding programme progress. The victim should be periodically contacted to ascertain any changes in the situation. When deemed necessary by evaluators, victim safety plans will be updated to reflect any change in risk.

Pre-sentencing Risk information may influence pre-sentencing decisions concerning programmes, interventions including diversion, deferred prosecution, restorative justice and ad­journments.

Victims should be required to approve the use of alternative programmes like restorative justice or any programme that requires victim participation. Regardless of the sentencing scheme chosen, perpetrators must be continued to be monitored with regular reviews, preferably before a judge able to amend custody orders if necessary.

Family Court jurisdiction Unlike criminal court, where actions are brought by law enforcement or prosecutors, the Family Court has jurisdiction when a petition/application for custody or a civil restraining order is filed by one of the parties.

Similarly, the moving party may dismiss the family law matter at any time, unless the matter is concurrently in Youth Court, which supersedes Family Court authority.

However in the event that both the family law matter and the Youth Court matter are dismissed, a fresh case may be refiled in both courts. If dire conditions prevail, either the Family Court or Youth Court may act to remove children.

In these circumstances, risk information is typically forwarded to the court by one of the attorneys.

Often, the Family Court will take judicial notice of the criminal court file to determine if the perpetrator has orders pending or is in violation of other criminal protective orders, conditions of parole/probation and non-compliance to mandated programmes.

In addition, the Family Court engenders its own stream of risk information arising from the child custody assessment process conducted by professionals together with testimony of lay and expert witnesses.

Determinations in “the best interest” of the child are the linchpin of custody decisions that include the designation of primary parent and the imposition of any

34

❝ An innocent child must never be released into harm’s way for want of salient, gamechanging information

conditions of supervision. The extent of the non-primary parent involvement in making health-related or school activity decisions must be carefully examined. An innocent child must never be released into harm’s way for want of salient, game-changing information.

With respect to domestic protection orders, the judge relies on the declarations made by the parties together with the testimony of witnesses at hearings in deciding to grant an order and, if so, what conditions should be added and what should be the duration of the order.

Clearly inter-court sharing adds weight, in a symbiotic manner, to the respective court actions. Better to seal the “gaps” at this stage than at a lethality review that retrospectively seeks to ascertain the gaps that lead to death.

Regardless if the vital risk information comes from collaborative partner (probation officer, intervention programme, police officer, substance abuse counsellor, etc), attorney, or by the taking of judicial notice of the criminal file contents, it is the judge who bears the ultimate responsibility to provide an informed response that achieves safety for victims of IPV and their children. ▪ Judge Eugene M Hyman (retired) of the Superior Court of California presided over domestic violence cases in the criminal, family, juvenile, and probate divisions of the court and has taught domestic violence prevention in Canada, Germany, New Zealand, Australia, and the United States. (www.JudgeHyman.com).

Inspector Rob Veale (retired) is a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit. When with the New Zealand Police, he participated in development of a number of national and international domestic violence-related initiatives including risk assessment tools, family safety teams and national family violence death reviews. (www. robveale.com).

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4 December 2015 · LawTalk 879

The Human Rights Review Tribunal, employment institutions and the adequacy of remedies

By Peter Cullen and Calum Cartwright The amount of compensation awarded for hurt and humiliation by the Employment Relations Authority (the Authority) and the Employment Court has been a topical issue among those practising employment law.

Some suggest that the awards given in the employment jurisdiction have been stagnant for too long. They claim those who successfully raise a personal grievance today are not being adequately compensated for any unjustified action of their employer.

Against this backdrop, it is becoming a popular notion that employees will obtain higher compensation if they take their claim to the Human Rights Review Tribunal (if the circumstances allow). This issue has come to the fore due to recent comments

by Judge Inglis in Hall v Dionex Pty Ltd [2015] NZEmpC 29 and Judge Ford in Rodkiss v Carter Holt Harvey [2015] NZEmpC 34.

In Hall v Dionex the Court expressed sympathy for the view that awards had fallen “woefully behind” in both the Authority and the Court.

The Court considered recent commentary and observed that compensatory awards had been stagnant for the last 20 years despite inflation.1 The Court further observed that in 2005 the Court of Appeal attempted to set an upper limit for compensatory awards of $27,000 in NCR (NZ) Corp Ltd v Blowes [2005] ERNZ 932. This upper limit was reached by considering the award of $20,000 given in Telecom South v Post Office Union Inc [1992] 1 NZLR 275 (CA) and adjusting this for inflation. The Court observed that if inflation were similarly applied to the upper limit of that time, it would be set at $33,000.

Hall v Dionex is notable for the fact the Court deliberately resisted the temptation to award compensation consistent with

Peter Cullen

Calum Cartwright

previous awards. Counsel for the employer in Hall suggested that a global figure of $5,000 should be awarded for the claims the employee made, analogous to the quantum which would usually be awarded in cases of that nature.

The Court observed that while there was a need for a degree of consistency in cases, there was a danger of this consistency keeping compensation awards artificially low.

Having considered these trends, the Court awarded the employee $18,000 in compensation which was reduced by 50% for contributory conduct.

In Rodkiss v Carter Holt Harvey, Judge Ford commented that the Court would follow the approach adopted in Hall v Dionex and endeavour to “fix a fair and reasonable amount of compensation bearing in mind the need in this jurisdiction for moderation in such awards”. The Court awarded the employee $20,000 in compensation.

Judge Ford referred to the “extensive publicity” given to the Human Rights Review Tribunal (HRRT) cases Hammond v Credit Union Baywide [2015] NZHRRT 6 and Singh v Singh & Scorpion Liquor (2006) Ltd [2015] NZHRRT 8 where compensation awards were $98,000 and $45,000 respectively.

While the Court considered that it would be inappropriate to compare the facts of the cases to the one being considered, the Court said that “the awards in question do appear to be substantially in excess of the awards made both the Authority and in this Court for arguably similar wrongs committed on employees”.

Caution should be exercised regarding whether persons claiming in the HRRT are likely to receive higher awards than if they filed in the employment jurisdiction. Both Hammond v Credit Union Baywide and Singh v Singh are cases where the harm suffered by the employees warranted

Victoria Casey joined Thorndon Chambers on 1 December 2015 Specialising in public law and the interface between public and commercial law, Victoria went to the independent bar in 2012 after practising with Crown Law, Meredith Connell and Bell Gully. victoria.casey@chambers.co.nz 04 212 4679 ▪ 021 029 95428 ▪ www.chambers.co.nz

35

LawTalk 879 · 4 December 2015

compensation awards falling within the upper range. Furthermore, Singh v Singh has since been appealed and the matter will be reheard on the basis that the defendant was not able to respond at the hearing.

Hammond v Credit Union Baywide In Hammond v Credit Union Baywide the HRRT found that there was a “sustained campaign by [Baywide] to inflict on Ms Hammond as much harm and humiliation as possible by ensuring she could not be employed in the Hawke’s Bay area (if not further afield) and to secure her dismissal by her current employer”.

The employer’s actions included forcing a junior employee to access private pictures on Facebook (of a cake with an insulting message towards the employer) which would not have otherwise been able to be seen by them. The employer then circulated these images to at least four “HR agencies”.

The employer later attempted to secure Hammond’s dismissal from her new employer. This included paying the new employer’s legal fees for advice on how they might dismiss her. When this failed, they refused to do business with her new employer until Hammond, out of sympathy for her new employer, resigned.

Singh v Singh & Scorpion Liquor (2006) Ltd In Singh v Singh the employee successfully brought a claim for racial discrimination. Singh was the victim of regular, racially motivated bullying. Contrary to his Sikh faith, Singh trimmed his beard and hair to avoid the unkind attention directed at him. This later came to the attention of his family, who were located in India, who disowned him as a consequence.

The bullying continued and events culminated with him being hit on the head with a clipboard and being punched. Singh resigned but faced uncertainty regarding whether he could remain in New Zealand as his visa had been dependant on his employment. Singh suffered from depression and anxiety due to these events.

It is clear that these awards from both these cases would represent the upper range for compensation in the HRRT.

compared to the highest awards given in the employment jurisdiction for hurt and humiliation. The compensation in Hammond is higher than any compensation for hurt and humiliation awarded by the Authority or the Court.

Only two hurt and humiliation compensation awards have been given by the Authority which are higher than the award given in Singh. The highest awards the Authority and Employment Court have given since the Employment Relations Act 2000 was passed are as follows:2 Case

Compensation awarded

D v N Ltd ERA Auckland AAs90/03 AEA52/02, 25 September 2003

$60,000,

Subritzky v Western Mailing Ltd [2003] 2 ERNZ 465

$27,000

Waugh v Commissioner of Police [2004] ERNZ 450

$50,000

Staykov v Cap Gemini Ernst & Young New Zealand Ltd EC Auckland AC 18/05, 20 April 2005

$30,000

Hawkins v Commissioner of Police [2008] ERNZ 284

$35,000

Ora Ltd v Kirkley (2009) 7 NZELR 102

$27,000

Alo v New Zelaand Customs Service ERA Auckland AA305/10 29 June 2010

$40,000

Strachan v Moodie [2012] NZEmpC 95

$30,000.

While current upper range awards from the HRRT appear to be higher than those awarded by the ERA and Employment Court, it is less clear whether middle range cases might be.

Notably five years ago, the HRRT wrestled with the same issues that the Employment Court has this year.

In EN v KIC [2010] NZHRRT 9, the HRRT commented that the awards given for compensation should be calibrated for inflation. The HRRT further observed that the awards given by the HRRT had not been reviewed since 1998 and this was long overdue. The HRRT awarded the victim of the sexual harassment $10,000 but declined to review compensatory awards as the defendant did not have legal representation. It is possible that the awards given by the HRRT for the last four years represents an intention by the Comparison with awards in the HRRT to calibrate awards in accordance with inflation. employment jurisdiction The awards given by the HRRT each year from 2012 to However both of these awards are exceptionally high when 2015 are summarised in the table on the following page.

If only cases involving an employment relationship are considered since 2012, no award falls below $10,000. However, when all compensatory damages are considered, even where there was no employment relationship, the range of awards widens and Practice Management Systems a favourable trend of taking a case to the HRRT become less discernible.

It is important to note that the use of statistical information to scrutinise or Peter Attewell, Director, Osborne Attewell Clews determine likely awards has been the subject of criticism. The Courts observed www.onelaw.co.nz 03 339 6202 that tables and surveys, such as the above,

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36

4 December 2015 · LawTalk 879

Schedule of Compensation award given by the Human Rights Review Tribunal 2012-2015 3 Date

Case

Act

11 August 2015

Holmes v Housing New Zealand Corporation [2015] NZHRRT 36

PA

$400

‣ 29 July 2015

Director of Human Rights Proceedings v Crampton [2015] NZHRRT 35

PA

$18,000

‣ 7 July 2015

Watson v Capital & Coast District Health Board [2015] NzHRRT 27

PA

$10,000

Taylor v Orcon Ltd [2015] NZHRRT 15

PA

$15,000

‣ 9 March 2015

Satnam Singh v Shane Singh and Scorpion Liquor (2006) Ltd [2015] NZHRRT 8

HRA

‣ 2 March 2015

Hammond v Credit Union Baywide [2015] NZHRRT 6

PA

Director of Human Rights Proceedings v Schubach [2015] NZHRRT 4

PA

$5,000

Director of Human Rights Proceedings v Valli and Hughes [2014] NZHRRT 58

PA

$15,000

Holmes v Housing New Zealand Corporation [2014] NZHRRT 54

PA

$10,000

Meulenbroek v Vision Antenna Systems Ltd [2014] NZHRRT 51

HRA

$25,000

Armfield v Naughton [2014] NZHRRT 48

PA

‣ 24 February 2014

Nakarawa v AFFCO New Zealand Ltd [2014] NZHRRT 9

HRA

$15,000

‣ 12 February 2014

DML v Montgomery [2014] NZHRRT 6

HRA

$25,000

14 May 2015

19 February 2015 ‣ 15 December 2014 3 November 2014 ‣ 14 October 2014 6 October 2014

20 September 2013 Geary v Accident Compensation Corporation [2013] NZHRRT 34

Compensation Award

$45,000 †

PA

$98,000

$7,000

$5,000

25 February 2013

Director of Proceedings v Emms [2013] NZHRRT 5

HDCA

$15,000

1 November 2012

Director of Human Rights Proceedings v Hamilton [2012] NZHRRT 24

PA

$15,000

30 August 2012

Holmes v Ministry of Social Development [2012] NZHRRT 19

PA

$2,000 ‡

23 August 2012

Director of Human Rights Proceedings v INS Restorations Ltd [2012] NZHRRT 18

PA

$20,000

6 July 2012

Fehling v South Westland Area School [2012] NZRRT 15

PA

$10,000

28 March 2012

Director of Proceedings v Zhu [2012] NZHRRT 7

HDCA

$5,000

26 April 2012

Hale v Chester Burt Funeral Home Ltd [2012] NZHRRT 10

PA

$5,000

27 March 2012

Lochead-MacMillan v AMI Insurance Ltd [2012] NZHRRT 5

PA

$10,000

Key: are of limited use as they do not provide sufficient detail of the facts justifying each particular award.4 This criticism can be similarly applied to discerning any trend from the table regarding whether an award in the HRRT would be higher than if it were to be heard by the Authority.

However, these tables do indicate the range and frequency of awards given by the HRRT. Notably in Nakarawa v AFFCO New Zealand Ltd [2014] NZHRRT 9, the HRRT stated that the plaintiff ’s original claim for $2,000 under the Human Rights Act was “modest” when compared to compensation awards under analogous provisions in the Privacy Act. The HRRT considered a range of cases where the awards ranged from $10,000 to $20,000. The HRRT ordered that compensation of $15,000 should be awarded. This case demonstrates that the HRRT has considered the range and frequency of awards in other cases to determine the amount of compensation that should be awarded.

There is strong evidence to suggest that compensatory awards given by the Authority and Employment Court have fallen behind over the years.

The recent judgments in Hall v Dionex Pty Ltd and Rodkiss v Carter Holt Harvey may provide some impetus for compensation awards to increase to match inflation, especially in mid-range cases.

There is a strong basis to argue that cases likely to garner an award for compensation in the upper range are best dealt with in the HRRT, if at all possible. This said, it is unclear whether mid-range cases will fare any better there than they would if heard by the Authority or Employment Court. ▪ Peter Cullen is a partner, and Calum Cartwright a lawyer, at Cullen – the Employment Law Firm. Peter is also a member of New Zealand Law Society Employment Law Committee.

PA = Privacy Act 1993 HRA = Human Rights Act 1993, HDCA = Health and Disability Commissioner Act 1994 ‣ = Cases arising from an employment relationship Figures include compensation awarded for emotional harm under s 88(1)(c) of the Privacy Act 1993, s54(1)(c) damages for emotional harm under the Health and Disability Commissioner Act 1994 and s 92I(3)(c) and 92M(1)(c) of the Human Rights Act 1993. † Decision is being appealed. ‡ The HRRT found there were two separate breaches and awarded $10,000 and $7,000 compensation humiliation, loss of dignity and injury to feelings. The decision was appealed to the High Court and the award for $10,000 was set aside and the award for $7,000 reduced to $2,000.

1 Citing Kathryn Beck and Hamish Kynaston “Remedies – we’ve been thinking…” (paper presented to New Zealand Law Society 10th Employment Law Conference, October 2014) 2 Awards included in this table have been limited to compensation awards over $25,000 under s 123(c)(i) of the Employment Relations Act 2000, and have excluded breach of contract claims, Employment Contract Act 1991 claims and Health and Safety Act 1992 claims.

3 Retrieved from Ministry of Justice “Schedule of damages awarded”. (www.justice.govt.nz/tribunals/human-rights-reviewtribunal/decisions-of-the-human-rights-review-tribunal/scheduleof-damages-awarded).

4 See NZ Refining Co Ltd v Garrity EC Auckland AEC69/97, 9 July 1997.

37

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LawTalk 879 · 4 December 2015

Private practice to in-house and back — some insights

By Adam de Hamel In March of this year I was asked if I would consider working in-house for a client of my firm. The agreed period was for six months.

I would be working inside an organisation that the firm worked closely with on a range of matters.

It was a daunting prospect, not least because I had little concept of what the role would involve. It was my luck that the role was newly created and that there were two of us selected (albeit from different firms) to step into the breach.

This article shares some of the key things I learned while in-house. It was a rare opportunity to see the provision of legal services from inside a client and to learn how people rely on legal advice and support to do their jobs effectively.

Get to know people This may seem very obvious but it is something that many lawyers struggle with. The pressure of the billable unit often seems to override the need to just have a chat with the people you are dealing with.

The in-house role means that there is a need for personal promotion or PR. The more people that know who you are and what you do, the more likely they are to seek your help.

There is a perception that “going to legal” means getting entangled in red tape, legal jargon and complex issues. If people know you, they will be more likely to seek your advice on the little things – which as we all know can rapidly turn into something much larger.

Talk more, email less Email is a fantastic tool but it also can become an easy way to avoid direct contact.

Moving in-house means that most people you might need to deal with are within

40

walking distance. Use that to your advantage.

Emails often leave out information, whereas a 15-minute discussion will pay dividends. Not to mention it helps with getting to know people. If you have the time, people really appreciate the fact that a legal staff member took the time to come and chat about their issue.

Billing anxiety Unshackling yourself from the billable unit can be daunting at first. Learning to think in terms of how long a problem will take to resolve, rather than how much it will cost, is quickly picked up.

It also means that the associated administration time is not lost by drafting billing letters, reviewing timesheets or enduring potential write-offs. It also means that you can be more comfortable in working out a problem and seeking out the information you think is needed.

Learning to think quickly

Adam de Hamel

❝ The opportunities afforded by a temporary in-house experience are huge. The chance should be grabbed if offered

This is something that is really terrifying. People will often present themselves and ask tough questions of you – the sort of questions that might be discussed with colleagues before an answer is given. Except you don’t have any legal colleagues in the next office or cubicle necessarily.

Bear in mind that you can use the legal services that you used to provide, phone a friend and discuss it. Obviously this would need to be within the parameters of the work arrangements between your organisation and the law firm but most firms engaged by corporates have such processes in place.

Use them and avoid second guessing yourself or a potential error.

Try and avoid being too much of a ‘lawyer’ This is not advocating abandonment of legal skills but rather suggesting a less litigious approach (to those with a litigious background).

While it can be tempting to cross-examine someone about a mistake it is best avoided when it is not needed.

First, it can lead to you looking like the company “police”.

Second, it can lead to people not telling you things that you should know about. This is not to say don’t do your job, investigate issues and find out the details and who was responsible – just advocating a softer approach. It can provide more information and ensure the issue is properly dealt with. It also means you don’t end up being seen as a burden.

The opportunities afforded by a temporary in-house experience are huge. The chance should be grabbed if offered. The above reflects some of the things I learned during my recent experience. I am extremely grateful for the insights I gained and for the chance to meet some of the clients face-to-face. I would thoroughly recommend it to any lawyer in private practice. ▪ Adam de Hamel is an associate at Fortune Manning in Auckland.

4 December 2015 · LawTalk 879

Lawyers Complaints Service High Court upholds suspension Anthony Bernard Joseph Morahan’s threemonth suspension for breaching the intervention rule and misleading the court has been upheld by the High Court.

In noting that the suspension began on 30 November, Justice Wylie said that “Mr Morahan is fortunate that the Christmas vacation will mean that the suspension is, in reality, for a lesser period”.

In [2015] NZLCDT 29, the New Zealand Lawyers and Conveyancers Tribunal suspended Mr Morahan for three months after finding him guilty of three charges of misconduct (see LawTalk 877, 6 November 2015). The charges were that Mr Morahan: ▪▪ wilfully or recklessly acted for a client without an instructing solicitor in breach of rule 14.4 of the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act (Lawyers: Conduct and Client Care) Rules 2008; ▪▪ misled the court, opposing counsel and/ or the respondent standards committee, by asserting in written correspondence and court documents that a Mr T was his instructing solicitor, when Mr Morahan was aware that Mr T was not in fact his instructing solicitor, or was reckless as to whether or not Mr T was his instructing

solicitor; and ▪▪ used Mr T’s name on court documents without his knowledge, consent or authority.

Mr Morahan appealed both the three misconduct findings and the penalty of suspension. In [2015] NZHC 2886, Justice Wylie dismissed both appeals. Justice Wylie said he did not accept Mr Morahan’s submission that Mr T had instructed him.

“No responsible barrister could, in my view, properly conclude that the email correspondence which occurred amounted to an instruction by Mr T to Mr Morahan to act for Mr A. It is specious to suggest otherwise. Nor in my judgment can Mr Morahan contend that he thought he had been instructed by Mr T,” Justice Wylie said.

“In my judgement, the Tribunal was correct when it found that Mr T had not instructed Mr Morahan to act on Mr A’s behalf.”

While breach of the intervention rule of itself is not necessarily a particularly grave offence, consciously electing to breach the rule is “rather more serious and misleading the Court is very serious indeed,” Justice Wylie said.

Serious misconduct “In my judgment, Mr Morahan deliberately and wilfully misled the Family Court at Waitakere, by representing that he had an instructing solicitor when he did not have one. This was serious misconduct on the part of Mr Morahan, and in my view

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akin to wilful dishonesty.”

In that regard, he said that he disagreed with the Tribunal, which had found there was no dishonesty by Mr Morahan.

Justice Wylie also referred to Mr Morahan’s attitude to the complaint, which was “belligerent” from the outset.

“By way of example, he referred to the standards committee as being a ‘secret committee’. He expressed doubt that the committee knew the meaning of the requirement in s 142(1) of the Act to behave in a way that was consistent with the rules of natural justice. He commented that the committee behaved more like a ‘secret inquisition or secret Star Chamber’ than a judicial tribunal, and he referred to its investigation as a ‘witch hunt’.

“He referred to the complainant as a ‘vengeful shrew’. He alleged that the committee and/or the investigating officer … had redacted exhibits. He failed to abide by timetable orders set by the committee. He did not provide explanations for these failures. He failed to bring all relevant files to hearings despite a written request that he do so.

“In the submissions made on his behalf in relation to penalty, he asserted that the standards committee submissions were directed at besmirching him rather than being truthful. He said that the standards committee had made ‘vile, unprofessional claims’, and that the prosecution counsel had set out to trap him. He alleged the prosecution had coached Mr T to give his evidence.

“It is also clear that Mr Morahan has no remorse,” Justice Wylie said.

“A practitioner cannot expect that disreputable correspondence, or belligerent conduct, will be ignored in the exercise of the Tribunal’s power. That is because character – good or bad – can be very relevant to what sanction or penalty should be imposed.

“When determining ultimate fitness to remain in practice, whether limited by suspension or by striking off, the Tribunal is entitled to review the entire conduct of the practitioner, and transgressions the subject of earlier proceedings which go to the general behaviour of the practitioner.

“It cannot regard poor behaviour as justifying a more severe penalty, but it is an aggravating personal factor, and relevant to balancing matters of character.

“In my view, the Tribunal did not err in imposing a sentence of suspension for three months. The order was an appropriate and necessary response given the wilful misconduct of Mr Morahan.” ▪

41

LawTalk 879 · 4 December 2015

High Court upholds censure of John Eichelbaum The censure imposed on Auckland barrister John Revans Eichelbaum has been upheld

by Justice Venning in the High Court.

Mr Eichelbaum was censured by the New Zealand Lawyers and Conveyancers Disciplinary Tribunal after it found him guilty of two charges of misconduct and one charge of unsatisfactory conduct – [2014] NZLCDT 68 and [2015] NZLCDT 8.

The Tribunal also dismissed an application for permanent name suppression.

Mr Eichelbaum appealed to the High Court against both the substantive and penalty decision. He also sought permanent name suppression.

The lawyers standards committee also appealed the Tribunal’s decision. It appealed against dismissal of one of the charges and also against the penalty, submitting that it was inadequate and seeking a period of suspension.

In [2015] NZHC 1896, Justice Venning dismissed Mr Eichelbaum’s appeal against the Tribunal’s decision finding him guilty of misconduct and unsatisfactory conduct.

The appeal against the penalty of censure was also dismissed, as was the appeal against the Tribunal’s refusal to grant permanent name suppression.

Justice Venning also dismissed the standards committee’s cross appeal.

Mr Eichelbaum was engaged to act in litigation. The conduct which was the subject of disciplinary findings occurred following the breakdown in Mr Eichelbaum’s relationship with his client at the end of the instruction.

The charges The unsatisfactory conduct finding resulted from his improper use of the statutory demand procedure to seek $150,000 for services performed.

One finding of misconduct was for sending the solicitors for the client a draft affidavit containing offensive and scurrilous remarks against the client. The Tribunal found that this amounted to an implicit and improper threat that, if not paid, Mr

42

Eichelbaum would commence proceedings for his fees and attach the affidavit in support.

The other charge of misconduct related to the litigation and/or his claim for fees together with six emails or letters he sent to other lawyers which were discourteous.

Two of the letters were found to contain improper threats in breach of the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act (Lawyers: Conduct and Client Care Rules) 2008.

Provision of regulated services Fundamental to the Tribunal’s decision that Mr Eichelbaum was guilty of misconduct and unsatisfactory conduct was the Tribunal’s finding that Mr Eichelbaum’s conduct was clearly connected with the provision of legal services to the client and a company of which he was the sole shareholder, Justice Venning’s decision states.

Mr Eichelbaum’s counsel challenged that finding, submitting that Mr Eichelbaum did not have a retainer with the client and the company.

Justice Venning found that there was evidence supporting the Tribunal’s conclusion that Mr Eichelbaum did provide regulated services to the client and the company.

Mr Eichelbaum’s counsel also submitted that he was not providing regulated services at the time when the conduct complained of occurred.

“It cannot be said that the appellant’s conduct in this case, which was directed at obtaining payment for the legal (and other) work he had done for [the client and the company] was unconnected with the provision by him of legal services,” Justice Venning said.

Justice Venning said he agreed with the Tribunal’s conclusion that Mr Eichelbaum used the statutory demand procedure improperly, and that “the demand would inevitably have been set aside”.

Following withdrawal of the statutory demand, Mr Eichelbaum proposed to issue High Court proceedings against the client and the company. Before doing that, he sent an email to another law firm retained by the client, attaching a draft of the proposed proceedings, including an affidavit. The affidavit contained offensive and scurrilous remarks about the client.

“As the Tribunal noted, the inclusion of such material in the affidavit and the threat to use it was reprehensible,” Justice Venning said. “It was conduct that would reasonably be regarded by lawyers of good standing as disgraceful or dishonourable and as such constituted misconduct.”

Mr Eichelbaum then sent a series of letters and emails which did not treat the recipients with respect and courtesy, and two of which contained improper threats.

Justice Venning said he accepted the Tribunal’s conclusion on that charge that the conduct, viewed as a whole, was at the level of contravention which constituted misconduct.

Penalty “While the appellant’s conduct is properly categorised variously as misconduct and unsatisfactory, given it is the first example of such conduct and given the provocation by the rude and intemperate correspondence from [the client] I am satisfied that censure and an order for payment of costs is sufficient penalty.

“It follows I am not able to accept [Mr Eichelbaum’s counsel’s] submission that censure and the costs were excessive in this case,” Justice Venning said.

“The conduct complained of carried on over an extended period of time for over six months … It was wilful, and directed towards advancing the appellant’s personal financial situation.”

Justice Venning noted that the Tribunal’s decision not to order permanent name

John Upton LLM (Hons) QC

In addition to his advocacy work, John Upton welcomes appointments as an arbitrator or mediator. jou@capitalchambers.co.nz (04) 472 5804 · www.capitalchambers.co.nz

4 December 2015 · LawTalk 879

suppression was a decision open to it, and that Mr Eichelbaum could not point to any error in law or principle. Nor did the Tribunal take into account irrelevant matters.

The Tribunal ordered Mr Eichelbaum to pay the Law Society costs of $31,066 and reimburse hearing costs of $19,118. Justice Venning dismissed the appeal against these costs orders. ▪

Interim suspension Robert John Moody of Auckland has been suspended on an interim basis by the New Zealand Lawyers and Conveyancers Disciplinary Tribunal.

The Tribunal made the interim suspension order on 16 November. Effectively immediately, the order suspended Mr Moody until a charge he faces has been heard and determined by the Tribunal.

The reasons the order was made include the fact that Mr Moody is facing serious allegations of gross overcharging and other improper charging practices and because of his acknowledged deterioration in his health and capacity to provide legal advice. ▪

Fined for breaching trust account regulations A lawyer, C, has been censured and fined $4,000 by a lawyers standards committee for contravening the Trust Account Regulations and failing to honour an undertaking

to the NZLS. The committee also ordered C to successfully complete a Trust Account Supervisor training programme within 12 months, and provide confirmation of this to the Lawyers Complaints Service.

The committee conducted an own-motion investigation after receiving a report from the New Zealand Law Society Inspectorate. That report, dated 26 February 2015, stated that C had filed neither monthly nor quarterly trust accounts certificates since filing a monthly certificate for August 2014 on 14 September 2014.

The Lawyers and Conveyancers (Trust Account) Regulations 2008 require lawyers who operate a trust account to file monthly certificates by the 10th working day following the relevant month. They also require filing of quarterly certificates by the 10th working day of the end of the quarters ending March, June and September and, for December, by the 15th working day in January following.

The Law Society Inspectorate sent C reminder notices on 19 October 2014, 20 November 2014, 23 December 2014, 29 January 2015 and 20 February 2015.

The Inspectorate followed up those reminders by email on 16 February 2015, by leaving a voicemail message on 17 February 2015 and by telephone calls to C on 16 February 2015 and 20 February 2015, both of which were not returned.

Undertaking given In response, C emailed to Law Society on 20 February 2015 stating: “I have been in court today and undertake to have it done

by Monday 23 February 2015”. In a letter to the Lawyers Complaints Service C: ▪▪ accepted that he did not file his trust account certificates within the required time frame; ▪▪ explained that he was anxious to avoid a further complaint and stated that he believed he would be able to resolve an

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issue he faced by reversing payments but that his trust account software did not allow him to do so; and ▪▪ denied that his trust account was overdrawn.

C explained that he had met with a Law Society Inspector with whom he was able to resolve the issue that was preventing him balancing his trust account for September 2014. He stated that his trust account had subsequently been balanced for all of the remaining periods and that the issues that caused the problems had been remedied.

In acknowledging that he was at fault by failing to complete the certificates required, C stated that he had a “mental block” around the issue. He informed the committee that the issue had been resolved and that his office now had a better understanding of the process required for the trust account to be balanced on a more regular basis.

The committee said it regarded C’s admitted contraventions of the Trust Account Regulations with concern, and it described the contraventions as “serious”. It determined that these contraventions of the Trust Account Regulations were unsatisfactory conduct.

The committee also noted that C, in his response to the issue, provided the Law Society an undertaking that he would file his certificates by 23 February 2015. C acknowledged that he did not comply with his undertaking.

Noting that C had admitted failing to comply with the undertaking, the committee determined that this was unsatisfactory conduct.

“It is also of concern to the committee that [C] has previously been found to have contravened the [Trust Account] Regulations, which led to a finding of unsatisfactory conduct against him.”

As well as the censure, fine and order that C complete a Trust Account Supervisor training programme, the committee ordered him to pay the Law Society $1,000 costs. ▪

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43

Wills

Law Society Registry Comments concerning the suitability of any of the below-named applicants for the certificate or approval being sought should be made in writing to me by 10 December 2015. Any submissions should be given on the understanding that they may be disclosed to the candidate. The Registry is now advertising names of candidates for certificates of character, practising certificates and approvals to practise on own account on the NZLS website at www.lawsociety.org.nz/forlawyers/law-society-registry/applications-for-approval.

— Christine Schofield, Acting Registry Manager

Alfred Rangi Beazley Would any lawyer holding a will for the above named, late of 10 Ilex Place, Totara Heights, Auckland, who died on 28 July 2015, please contact Tony Tapsell, Law & Associates:  tony@lawassociates.co.nz  09 262 5515  09 263 6406  PO Box 76 124, Manukau 2241

Honora Marie Lombard Denize

 christine.schofield@lawsociety.org.nz  04 463 2940  0800 22 30 30  04 463 2989

Would any lawyer holding a will for the above named, late of 3 Hurdlow Place, Manly, who died on 17 October 2015 aged 88 years, please contact Katie Self, North Harbour Law:

Approval to Practise on Own Account

Silcock Joanne Margaret Townsend Sarah Emmanuelle Watson Sarah Jane (Nee Thornton)

 Katie@nhlaw.co.nz  09 426 3426  09 427 0550  PO Box 104, Orewa 0946, DX BP60001

Admission

Would any lawyer holding a will for the above named, who lived in New Zealand between December 1963 and October 1967 mostly in the Christchurch area, born on 21 May 1942, who died between 25 July 2015 and 1 August 2015 in New South Wales, Australia, please contact Stacey Heays, Gallie Miles, Lawyers:

Under s 30 of the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006 Allan Matthew Christopher Andrews Miriam Dawn Morrison Bligh Alexandra Christina Nerrick Bragg Nicholas James Casey Maurice John Chen Ping Cooley Tyrone John Costain Robert Bruce Alderton Daglish Robyn Jennifer Dillon Katherine Bridget Gilbert Alison Claire Laband Caroline Margaret Laird Nina Lorraine Moodley Prajna Oh Andrew Teik Kim Priest Emma Phillis Ryburn Amy Elizabeth Sherriff Aaron Lindsay

44

Beazley, Alfred Rangi Denize, Honora Marie Lombard Emmerson, Peter John Fowler, Joseph John Jones, Robert Maurice Kereopa, Francis Aonui, Komene, Rui Apiata Kong, Neville Laird, Malcolm Gordon Leef, Ramarihi Judith Ann Leighton, Christine Margaret Lindsay, Keith Desmond Naidu, Hari Krishna Rosary, Celia Immanuela Royle, Joyce Marie Rushton, Brian Sandri, DAvid Lance Semisi, Selina Melesete Tane, Matangora Varley, Robert Walter, Erin John

Under Part 3 of the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006 Bell Alexandra Kate Boock Samira Anne Elizabeth Fussey William Goodall Amelia Elizabeth Heads Kelsi Jayne Kelly Kalcie Tanya Kernaghan Liam Michael Lamb Sarah Rachael Su-Yin Luke Nicolette Marguerite Elizabeth Mallett Sean James McCallum Nicole Emma McDonald Samuel James Pullar Billy Jack Tashkoff Joel Vaughan Watson Elisha Anne Margaret

Peter John Emmerson

 stacey@gallie.co.nz  07 872 0560  07 871 5882  PO Box 170, Te Awamutu 3840, DX GA29011

Joseph John Fowler Would any lawyer holding a will for the above named, late of Flat 3, 20 Leyden Street, Phillipstown, Christchurch, previously 24 Charles Street, Rangiora, North Canterbury, born on 1 June 1942, who died at Christchurch on 30 October 2015 please contact Karen Harrison, Papprills Lawyers:  karen.harrison@papprills.co.nz  03 379 2800  03 365 6557  PO Box 376, Christchurch 8140

4 December 2015 · LawTalk 879

Robert Maurice Jones Would any lawyer holding a will for the above named, late of 3/4 Lietholm Place, Roxburgh, Central Otago, Retired, born on 21/22 December 1953, who died on 30 October 2015, please contact Sam Jones:  samjones77@hotmail.com  022 050 3053  4 Sasanof View, Ascot Park, Porirua 5024

Francis Aonui Kereopa Would any lawyer holding a will for the above named, aka Frank Kereopa, late of 21 Tiverton Road, Blockhouse Bay, Auckland, Retired, who died late September/early October 2015, please contact Kim Matetaka, Jefferies Law:  kim@jefferieslaw.co.nz  07 858 3628  07 858 4263  PO Box 981, Hamilton 3240, DX GP20009

Rui Apiata Komene Would any lawyer holding a will for the above named, late of Owhango, Taumaranui, Retired, who died on 19 June 2015, please contact Robbie Harre, McVeagh Fleming:

Keith Desmond Lindsay

David Lance Sandri

Would any lawyer holding a will for the above named, who died at Auckland on 20 August 2015 aged 65 years, please contact Grant Aislabie, Newmarket Law:

Would any lawyer holding a will for the above named, late of Lumsden, Truck Driver, who died on or about 17 October 2015, please contact Emma Stanley, Emma Stanley Law:

 grant@newmarketlaw.co.nz  09 529 0229  PO Box 99633, Newmarket 1149

 emma@emmastanleylaw.co.nz  03 218 3662  03 218 3663  PO Box 4, Invercargill 9840

Hari Krishna Naidu

Selina Melesete Semisi

Would any lawyer holding a will for the above named, late of 19 David Avenue, Manurewa, Auckland, Retired, born on 5 November 1953, who died at Auckland on 17 July 2015 aged 61 years, please contact Natalie Bell, Public Trust:

Would any lawyer holding a will for the above named, late of 21A Martin Road, Manurewa, Retired, who died on 19 August 2015, please contact Dr John Gray, Insight Legal:

 Natalie.Bell@publictrust.co.nz  09 985 6860 or 0800 371 471  Private Bag 17 906, Greenlane, Auckland 1546

Celia Immanuela Rosary Would any lawyer holding a will for the above named, late of 34 Kingston Street, Auckland, who died between 25 October 2015 and 28 October 2015 aged 28 years, please contact Pearl Butler, Gellert Ivanson Lawyers:  pearl.butler@gellertivanson.co.nz  09 575 2330  09 575 2337  PO Box 25239, St Heliers, Auckland 1041

Joyce Marie Royle

 rharre@mcveaghfleming.co.nz  09 377 9966  09 379 4230 PO Box 4099, Shortland Street, Auckland 1140  DX CP21506

Would any lawyer holding a will for the above named, late of Auckland, Housewife, who died on 13 October 2015 aged 102 years, please contact Emma Ahmed, Prudentia Law:

Neville Kong

 emma@prudentia.co.nz  09 912 1985  09 912 1982  PO Box 340, Shortland Street, Auckland 1140

Would any lawyer holding a will for the above named, late of 41 Pohutukawa Place, Ellerslie, Auckland, Retired, who died on 21 September 2015 aged 73 years, please contact Denise Wilson, Penney Patel Law:  denise@penneypatel.co.nz  09 623 0402  09 623 0406  PO Box 26 344, Epsom, Auckland 1344

Malcolm Gordon Laird Would any lawyer holding a will for the above named, who died in Peru on 21 June 2015, please contact Richard Peters, Pegasus Bay Law Ltd:

Brian Rushton Would any lawyer holding a will for the above named, late of 48/1, Village No.2, Nang Buat Sub district, Doem Bank Nang Buat District, Suphan Buri Province, who died on 5 July 2015 at Samreang General Hospital, Doem Bang Nang Buat District, Suphan Buri Province, Thailand, please contact Laurie Pallett, Rainey Collins :  lpallett@raineycollins.co.nz  04 473 6850  PO Box 689, Wellington 6140, DX SP20010

 richard@pegasusbaylaw.co.nz  03 386 2211  03 386 2201  PO Box 27-120, Christchurch 8640

Ramarihi Judith Ann Leef Would any lawyer holding a will for the above named, aka Judith Ann Leef, late of 9 Matangi Road, Mt Wellington, Auckland, Widow/Factory Hand, born on 10 May 1935 /1936, who died on 13 August 2015, please contact Celia Alberta Leef (daughter):  leefcelia00@gmail.com  027 203 6825  40 Mandival Ave, Flatbush, Manukau 2019

Christine Margaret Leighton Would any lawyer particularly in the Wellington area holding a will for the above named, late of Waikanae, who died on 27 July 2015, please contact Fleur Hobson, Susie Mills Law Limited:

 jgray@insightlegal.co.nz  09 425 7884  09 425 7032  PO Box 333, Warkworth 0941, DX AA25509

Matangaro Tane Would any lawyer holding a will for the above named, late of 13 Haylock Grove, Totara Park, Upper Hutt, Tutor, who died at Lower Hutt on 9 September 2014, please contact Hassall Gordon O’Connor & Newton:  tok.law@xtra.co.nz  07 886 6279  07 886 8231  PO Box 76, Tokoroa 3444, DX GA28501

Robert Varley Would any lawyer holding a will for the above named, late of Auckland, Te Rapa, Hamilton, Bulls, 3 Mecca Place, Bromley, Christchurch, ex Airforce Fire Flight, born on 28 November 1950, who died on 25 October 2015, please contact Margaret Birdsey, Birdsey & Associates Lawyers:  margaret.birdsey@birdsey.co.nz  09 480 9794  09 480 9764  PO Box 340-387, Birkenhead, Auckland 0746

Erin John Walter Would any lawyer holding a will for the above named, late of 9 Graham Grove, Waikanae, Industrial Relations Advisor, born on 10 March 1958, who died on 25 October 2015, please contact Sally Harrow, The Law Connection:  sally@lawconnect.co.nz  04 299 3192  04 299 7686  PO Box 2079, Raumati Beach 5032

Chambers in High Street, Auckland Sizeable corner office available for barrister. A smaller room is also available for a junior.

Attractive space with substantial storage, meeting room, kitchenette and reception; to share with three other barristers.

Available from 1 January 2016.

Please contact Alex McDonald alex@amcdonald.co.nz Stuart Ryan stuart@stuartryan.co.nz

 Fleur@susiemills.com  04 293 3735  04 299 1133  PO Box 144, Waikanae 5250

45

LawTalk 879 · 4 December 2015

Associate/Solicitor 2-5 years’ PQE Banking and Finance (Transactional) Auckland

THE UNIVERSITY OF WAIKATO

Lecturer/Senior Lecturer Te Piringa - Faculty of Law Te Piringa translates as “the coming together of people”.

From 2016 Te Piringa will be housed in a state of the art new building. As one of seven faculties in the University, it has over 900 students, and 40 staff. According to this year’s QS World University Rankings, the Faculty is ranked as being among the top 150 law schools in the world.

We are looking for qualified applicants with expertise in one or more of the following areas; CyberLaw, Law and New Technologies, Land Law, Equity, Legal Method and Maori Legal Issues. You should have recent experience in practice and/or academic teaching and will be expected to be highly research active. It is essential that you have a LLM, with a doctoral degree preferable, and be capable of postgraduate supervision.

Simpson Grierson has an opportunity for you to join the transactional side of its large banking and finance practice.

You will want to build a career in banking and finance We are looking for a lawyer with experience or interest in transactional banking and financial regulation, strong academic grades, and excellent written and analytical skills. You will be self-managing and efficient within a high performance environment.

You’ll have autonomy with good support If you’re looking for an opportunity to manage files semi-autonomously, be in direct contact with clients, but also have the support of working as part of an experienced specialist team and closely with the team’s partners, then we would like to hear from you.

You’ll enjoy access to outstanding work in a firm with a great culture You will have access to excellent work in this top tier practice. Our banking clients include banks, major corporates and key participants in the financial services sector. The work is varied, interesting and will also enable you to work with our corporate, property and securities enforcement teams. You will have exposure to offshore clients and to new products such as peer-to-peer lending.

You will have the outstanding development opportunities that Simpson Grierson offers, at your disposal. As a firm proud of its diverse and inclusive culture, Simpson Grierson is a market leader as an employer of choice.

Please contact Jennifer Little for a confidential discussion at: Jennifer@jlrnz.com

Your legal search and recruitment partner 021 611 416 / www.jlrnz.com

The salary range for Lecturers is NZ $69,379 to $84,706 per year and for Senior Lecturers is NZ$86,840 to $116,478 per year.

Further information about the Faculty of Law is available at http://www.waikato.ac.nz/law Enquiries of an academic nature should be directed to the Dean of Law, Wayne Rumbles, email: wayner@waikato.ac.nz Closing date: 9 December 2015 Vacancy number: 350217 For more information and to apply, visit www.jobs.waikato.ac.nz

Ko te Tangata – For the People At the University of Waikato we define ourselves by our academic and research excellence and the strength of our international connections. Our distinctiveness is driven by our focus on sustainability, our commitment to Māori learning and research, and our role as leaders and innovators.

Our motto, Ko te Tangata, underlines our acknowledgement of the Treaty of Waitangi, equal opportunity for all, the importance of collegiality, and the individuals who are our staff, students and stakeholders.

E herea ana te Whare Wānanga ki te kaupapa kia whakaratohia te mea angitū ōrite ki ngā tāngata katoa.

Here, there and everywhere.

With offices around the world, our client base and candidate reach is both extensive and impressive.

Contact Damian Hanna at damian.hanna@jlegal.com

JLegal – Your Global Career Strategists.

46

www.jobs.waikato.ac.nz

new zealand www.jlegal.com level 1, 124 willis street, wellington t | +64 4 499 5949

4 December 2015 · LawTalk 879

Commercial Professional Support Lawyer 4-7 years’ PQE (Part-time)

Senior Relationship Property Litigator

Auckland

A rare opportunity exists for a senior relationship property lawyer to join Simpson Grierson’s experienced commercial litigation department. Simpson Grierson has been actively involved in this practice area for many years.

Simpson Grierson has a fantastic opportunity for a professional support lawyer to join its large commercial work group on a part-time basis.

In this key national role, you will ensure the team has the best resources and precedents required to meet clients’ needs across all corporate and commercial practice areas. This opportunity requires a self-starter who can work autonomously and proactively to manage all induction resources and documents required for legal training, precedents and toolkits, business development and marketing materials.

The successful lawyer will have creative energy, attention to detail, strong initiative and a good grasp of legal precedents required in this area of practice.

In return, you will join a driven, collaborative and well connected team of experts within a commercial and innovative environment that offers first-rate work, diversity and flexibility.

Auckland

This is a largely independent role within a litigation team.

You’ll be acting on relationship property and associated trust work and family law matters across New Zealand. You will run your own files and make regular appearances in the Courts and at mediation.

Ideally, you’ll have a minimum of 7 years’ relationship property experience and good networks within the relationship property and family law community.

This opportunity will enable you to work with a first-rate team within one of New Zealand’s top four firms, develop your own profile and practice and work on the other side of well-known barristers and QCs.

This role will suit someone that is looking for part-time hours up to four days a week.

An outstanding firm, Simpson Grierson provides a professional, commercial, supportive and flexible culture.

Part-time hours can be accommodated.

Please contact Jennifer Little for a confidential discussion at: Jennifer@jlrnz.com

Please contact Jennifer Little for a confidential discussion at: Jennifer@jlrnz.com

Your legal search and recruitment partner 021 611 416 / www.jlrnz.com

Your legal search and recruitment partner 021 611 416 / www.jlrnz.com

READY TO BUILD ON YOUR EXPERIENCE? Treadwells is New Zealand’s oldest law firm. While we embrace our 175 year heritage we are a forward-facing general practice firm situated in Wellington’s CBD. We wish to extend our talent base and have a position for an intermediate solicitor who wishes to further their skills in a supportive environment that offers a variety of interesting work and opportunities to operate with increasing independence.

We are looking for someone who: · has 2-5 years’ private client experience · has experience in a wide range of private client work including property law, trusts and estate planning · has some experience in company law · has excellent drafting and communication skills · is interested in the opportunity to grow their own practice · has a pragmatic approach and an excellent attitude to their work

If you are interested in this position please send your covering letter, CV and academic transcript to Malcolm Galloway, Treadwells, PO Box 859, Wellington 6140 or malcolm@treadwells.co.nz. All applications will be treated in confidence.

47

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