Collins Judith: Lawyers and Conveyancers Bill — First Reading 
Collins Judith: Lawyers and Conveyancers Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:610;Page:7381] 
JUDITH COLLINS (NZ National—Clevedon) 
: 
 Following on from the comments made by the Minister I rise to say that the National Party supports sending this bill to the select committee. We have a few reservations and I would like to talk about a couple of them. I know that my colleagues Simon Power and Richard Worth will be dealing with some so I will keep mine to just a few. 
One of the issues is that district law societies will no longer have any statutory powers or rights even to exist. I note that this bill has the support of the New Zealand Law Society and as the Minister did not refer to any support from district law societies I have to question as a former president of the Auckland District Law Society whether district law societies are quite so keen on this bill. The work of the district law societies is great and varied. Certainly in relation to the Auckland District Law Society I would like to take this time to praise the society for the work it has done. 
One of the services that district law societies provide for the use of all lawyers is district law libraries. They are located in High Courts and District Courts around the country. Practitioners pay for the libraries in their areas. It is a service that we are constantly told by the larger firms is of no use to them. Certainly in my time in a large firm that was said. But it is not true. Large firms as well as small firms and barristers are constant users of the libraries. It is extremely important for the legal profession and the people it serves and for justice generally that lawyers have access to information in libraries. People who are in practice in small firms who are sole practitioners or who are barristers often do not have the spare funds available to spend on extensive libraries. Even the most basic library will cost mere tens of thousands of dollars a year. That is all money that those people could use in building up their practices in continuing their legal education and in employing staff. So it is often a huge bonus for practitioners to have these libraries—libraries that are likely to face the chop. 
In addition the district law societies currently deal with complaints against practitioners. They do this often on a no-cost basis because the people making the decisions are fellow practitioners who are giving of their time voluntarily. Having sat on complaints committees for several years at the Auckland District Law Society I know that many times we were faced with situations of practitioners who were somewhat past their use-by-date; who had really not done anything wrong but who had just come to the end of their practice life and someone needed to tell them that. So we often took a very kind view in the way we helped those people to leave the profession with some dignity and self-respect. I would hate to see a situation whereby the process becomes so institutionalised and bureaucratic that a kindly ear and a helping hand cannot be given to people who have perhaps stayed a bit longer than they should have in the profession. 
Another area that the Auckland District Law Society is very much involved in is continuing legal education. I see that is given some emphasis in this bill and I am very pleased about that. But the fact remains there was no such concept in this country until the Auckland District Law Society invented it. In addition the society has been involved in the establishment and funding through its practitioners of the Grey Lynn Neighbourhood Law Office as well as other law centres around the Auckland region. From that germ as such grew all sorts of other law centres and community law centres throughout the country. 
Other innovations from the Auckland District Law Society included standardising forms for agreements for sale and purchase and debentures. That district law society has done other things including all sorts of things that today in legal practice and even often in accounting practice and real estate practice are accepted as the norm. The Auckland District Law Society produces those things as a close look at the forms will show. Plenty of things are done by district law societies that have never been done by the New Zealand Law Society and I have a concern that centralisation of issues and the people in Wellington—away from the very people who use the services—will fragment the legal profession. I would be very sorry to see that happen and at the select committee the National Party will be looking very closely at that. 
I am concerned as well about the costs of the new structure because a lot of the bills that are intended to modify existing structures on the basis that it will make the whole process cheaper and more accountable often have exactly the reverse effect. That is one of the concerns I have particularly in relation to complaints. I will be very pleased to see a standardisation of transparency in complaints procedures and I will be very pleased to see practitioners who practise in large firms treated in the same way as practitioners who practise in small firms. Certainly it has been my experience in my many years of connection with both the Auckland District Law Society and the New Zealand Law Society that there is often a disparity of power and therefore a disparity of treatment. It is something that I personally took a stance on and I have to say that many of my colleagues felt that it was very important as well. 
The conveyancing issues which of course dominate this bill—and certainly they have been in the Hon Phil Goff’s mind since 1997—are in fact a bit of a nonsense really because conveyancing has been a very unprofitable side of legal practice for many years for many practitioners certainly for those in the bigger firms and those in the higher-rent areas. So conveyancing has in many ways been pushed out into the suburban parts of Auckland and other large centres well away from the higher-rent areas. 
Conveyancing has not been a monopoly as many practitioners and former practitioners here in the House will know. It has driven us mad to hear politicians with very little between their ears talking about conveyancing being a monopoly. How can it possibly be a monopoly when there are 7000 lawyers in the country almost all of whom at one stage in their life have practised in conveyancing? Not only that when the scale fees were done away with back in the 1980s—I was practising at that time and remember the consternation about that—a tremendous amount of effort was put into competing on the basis of fees none of which effort I have to say has ever led to a rise in standards. That is one of the issues and I do not think that opening up the area to licensed conveyancers will necessarily raise those standards. I do not see that it is a terrible thing to bring in licensed conveyancers. I welcome the fact that we will now see a process whereby they along with lawyers are licensed and regulated because at the end of the day if we are to have these professions and industries we need to have a level playing field as much as possible. 
I raise a concern at this stage in relation to accountants and tax advice. I am concerned that clauses 6 and 18 may render some of the work currently done by tax accountants and even by tax practitioners in the Inland Revenue Department under some sort of threat because they are not necessarily going to be registered as lawyers or conveyancers. That is something that the select committee will need to look at. So in many ways we have concerns but at the same time we will allow and support this bill going to the select committee. I will be keeping a very close eye on the results and will be interested to see what comes back to us.