New Zealand Law Society rejects legal aid abuse claim

The New Zealand Law Society has rejected a claim that lawyers are routinely abusing the legal aid invoicing system. This claim was made in defence of Christopher Comeskey who was yesterday suspended from legal practice for nine months after pleading guilty to professional misconduct.

Law Society President Jonathan Temm today said New Zealand had a well-established system in place to ensure that the legal profession maintained the standards of professional integrity expected by all New Zealanders.

Mr Temm said the Law Society was charged with regulating the legal profession to ensure it operated lawfully and in the interests of clients. While there was an excellent framework for investigating and prosecuting identified misconduct, there was also a strong focus on prevention.

“I have no doubts that New Zealand’s legal profession maintains very high professional standards and integrity,” he said. “Lawyers are officers of the court and they have a duty to uphold the rule of law. All lawyers are required to act within the law and with integrity at all times.”

Mr Temm said it was very disappointing to hear an unsubstantiated allegation of routine abuse of the legal aid invoicing system made in defence of a practitioner who has pleaded guilty to three serious charges of professional misconduct.

“This has no factual basis,” he said. “Unfortunately even the allegation that 16% of a sample of legal aid files were under or over the hours billed has been misreported, with some media mishearing and reporting it as 60%.”

Mr Temm said part of the system in place to regulate the legal profession required all lawyers to adhere to the Rules of Conduct and Client Care for lawyers.

“Rule 2.8 makes it mandatory for any lawyer who has reasonable grounds to suspect that another lawyer has been guilty of misconduct to make a confidential report to the

Law Society at the earliest opportunity. Any such report or any complaint or communication of a suspicion of irregularity will be investigated by the Law Society.”

Mr Temm said that in spite of the allegation, the Society had not received any information that would indicate that there was widespread abuse of legal aid invoicing.

ENDS

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