Worth Richard: Lawyers and Conveyancers Bill — In Committee 
Worth Richard: Lawyers and Conveyancers Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:629;Page:1554] 
Dr RICHARD WORTH (National) 
: 
 Perhaps there is not a lot in Part 8 that need detain us as we move to the closing stages of debate on this Lawyers and Conveyancers Bill but it is right to know that apparently for good reason the Council of Legal Education has been renamed the New Zealand Council of Legal Education. The previous speaker paid tribute to Justice Tipping and that is wholly appropriate but I also identify for recognition the secretary of the council Rosemary Gordon who gives much of her time and certainly all of her skill to running that enterprise on a proper and professional basis. It is certainly a challenging organisation to be part of. There are people in this Chamber including people like Christine Grice who make a magnificent contribution to the work of the council. 
The council’s primary task is concerned with supervising the provision of training for those who having secured their degrees in law embark on pre-admission training prior to being admitted as barristers and solicitors of the High Court. That is of course not its only function but that is its primary function. I would also instance as an example of the further work it does the liaison that is undertaken with the deans of the faculties of law schools throughout this country in both the setting of prescriptions and the assessment and moderation of papers in the core subjects that are seen to constitute the prerequisites for a law degree. 
One of the issues that has challenged the New Zealand Council of Legal Education in recent times is the flow of persons from overseas who wish to practise law in this country. Those people come from a range of jurisdictions where the practice of law may be markedly different from the way law is practised in this country. They come not only from the common law jurisdictions with which we are all very familiar but from other places as well where the rule of law is perhaps pursued in a somewhat different way. I mention this only because there is an issue that sweeps across a wider spectrum of activity than simply the law—that of authenticating the qualifications that those coming from other countries claim. I do not doubt—and certainly the Council of Legal Education has struck this—there are circumstances whereby people proffer their credentials for scrutiny and those credentials following scrutiny do not stack up. We need to develop more sophisticated mechanisms to make sure that those who seek to practise in this country against the background of qualifications secured in a foreign clime do in fact have the qualifications they assert they do. 
Mr Finlayson has spoken of a current issue—and it is probably rightly described as a conflict—between the College of Law and the Institute of Professional Legal Studies. The College of Law has a background of delivering training in jurisdictions other than New Zealand and Australia—in other countries besides—and it has recently entered the market particularly at the behest of the major law firms to provide a greater degree of distance learning. That I suppose has provoked a response from the Institute of Professional Legal Studies to offer a similar type of training programme. How achievable it is as Mr Finlayson has suggested to sell the institute is not perhaps an issue for today but he is right to identify the potential for conflict that exists in the case of a council that has both a regulating and a providing function. Quite clearly it is a time of tension between those entities. The Council of Legal Education’s concern has to be that services are properly delivered. 
The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 10 in the name of the Hon Mark Burton to an amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 289 in the name of the Hon Phil Goff to clause 252 be agreed to. 
Amendment to the amendment agreed to. 
The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 289 in the name of the Hon Phil Goff to clause 252 as amended the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 324 in his name and the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 10 in the name of the Hon Mark Burton to Part 8 be agreed to. 
Amendment as amended and amendments agreed to. 
Part 8 as amended agreed to.