LAW CODE: Many of New Zealand's biggest public companies are calling on lawyers to do more to protect client rights in a new code of professional conduct due to come into force next year. Subscribe to Archivestuff Have your say Many of New Zealand's biggest public companies are calling on lawyers to do more to protect client rights in a new code of professional conduct due to come into force next year. Legal counsel for 60 companies, including Telecom and Fonterra, say the Law Society's draft code documents make virtually no mention of client care.
Instead, the society's proposed implementation of last year's Lawyers and Conveyancing Act is almost exclusively focussed on internal structural issues, they say. In an open letter to the Law Society, counsel also representing government organisations including the auditor-general's office, say lack of any reassurance on the protection of clients in the new rules is a "major omission". They are calling for a lawyers' code that asserts client rights similar to that introduced for the medical profession following the Cartwright Inquiry 20 years ago.
But the call for such a code of rights has implications for clients other than lawyers representing large corporates who are themselves clients of other lawyers. Corporate Lawyers Association president Helen Mackay said a clear, easily understood code of client rights would send a positive signal to the whole community. "I think the profession, particularly in New Zealand, has taken some knocks over the years," she said.
The most recent was that of David James Watt, a lawyer who charged an estate $160,000 when his only real duties were the sale of one property and the purchase of another. As disconcerting, he was able to fleece the estate despite repeated complaints to the Auckland District Law Society. Found guilty of defrauding a trust, Watt was sentenced to 15 months' jail.
Mackay said a code of rights would make it easier for people accessing legal services to understand what they were entitled to. "But more than that, it would be good for the legal profession too," she said. "It would reiterate that 99.
9% of lawyers are fundamentally committed to their clients." Legal consultant and former Law Society board member Ron Pol said his own business's research base indicated clearly what legal counsel for corporates were looking for from law firms. Linking billing to value received by clients; A willingness to invest non-chargeable time understanding a business or other organisation; Being able to help assess a law firm's performance.
"I am sure these points would resonate well with people who use lawyers in a personal capacity," said Pol. He said for 20 years the medical profession vehemently opposed a charter of rights as something that would impede the progress of medicine. The patients' charter has become an international landmark, and doctors were now sixth on a recent list of New Zealand's most trusted professions, while lawyers languished at 28th out of 40.
"The arguments of doctors over a charter of patients' rights sound absurd today, but we seem to be getting the same line from the legal profession," said Pol. Also under fire from some lawyers as they debate governance changes is the right won from legislation for the profession to remain self-regulating. As part of the new regulatory framework, from July next year the Law Society will have new powers to deal with unsatisfactory conduct within the profession.
Mackay said her association did not take issue with self-regulation "as it is a debate we didn't think we needed to have. "It is easy to be cynical about people regulating themselves, but I believe in most instances it has worked well," she said. And moving away from self-regulation meant finding the right body to do the regulating.
But Ashley Balls, a management consultant who specialises in the legal profession, said that had proved no problem to the legal profession in Britain which in January established the Solicitors' Regulatory Authority which replaced the disciplinary section of the Law Society there. The majority on the executive were non-lawyers, he said. Balls said abandonment of self-regulation in Britain had not been as a result of a groundswell of opinion that lawyers were dishonest, "because clearly the overwhelming majority are not".
"Rather, the ground has moved, and society now expects something other than self-regulation," said Balls. Balls said the continuation of self-regulation among the legal profession here had not been seen to be a matter of public interest, "when clearly it is". Pol said banking ombudsman Liz Brown last month noted banks had discovered that private institutions which opened themselves up to a truly independent dispute resolution process had "much more credibilty with their customers".
"Lawyers need to learn the same lesson," he said. LAW CODE: Many of New Zealand's biggest public companies are calling on lawyers to do more to protect client rights in a new code of professional conduct due to come into force next year.
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