Lawyers and Conveyancers (Employed Lawyers Providing Free Legal Services) Amendment Bill

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It is a pleasure to speak on this lawyers and conveyancers amendment bill. It is an important point that Mr Bishop picks up here, and that is the ability of lawyers to offer their services to the community for free. Some would think it’s not but in fact, whilst lawyers, when paid, get paid well, many lawyers do a large amount of work for free. In so far as this bill supports that, it’s a good thing. I’m pleased to say that on this side of the House we’ll be supporting this bill to select committee, where I hope it will be improved in a number of respects. I do, however, want to say that on this side of the House we also recognise the really important place that the provision of legal services and effective dispute resolution services play and the role that the State has to play in that. I find it somewhat ironic that Mr Bishop is bringing to this House a bill which is essentially about access to justice when between 2010 and 2014 a third—$50 million—was cut from the legal aid budget.

I took some time earlier in the House, actually, to do some research and saw the legal aid budget over time. In 2011 it was $154 million, a goodly sum of money. In 2012 it was $148 million—dropping. In 2013 it was $130 million—dropping again—and in 2014, $124 million, and in 2015 it tweaked up slightly to $130 million. In 2016, it was $134 million. We are still nowhere near where we were in 2011. Can you imagine, over those arid National years, there was a drop in legal need? I think not. What there was, was a massive unmet legal need, and now Mr Bishop is coming to patch it up by saying, “Well, you should offer more free legal services.” Well, lawyers do offer free legal services and I’m happy to support him in that.

But it wasn’t until this Government got in that we really started working on appropriate low-cost and free legal services to those in genuine legal need. In 2018, $158 million was spent. In 2019, $179 million was spent. You will see massive increases in the legal aid budget there, and, importantly, I do want to mention the fantastic work done by our many community law centres. That’s free work offered into the community across the board—all kinds of legal need, whether it be a consumer issue, whether it be a family law issue, it really is first responders of legal need. I want to give a big shout-out, especially to the Canterbury Community Law Centre, which does fantastic work. I was proud to serve on the board of that organisation for many years.

This bill irons out something of a wrinkle in the law. Whilst lawyers generally can offer free legal services, the fact is that any lawyer needs either to be entitled to practise on their own account—that is to be a senior lawyer approved by the Law Society—or be supervised. And in being supervised they must be supervised by someone entitled to practise on their own account.

So an employed lawyer, a lawyer who is employed by a law firm or employed by another organisation as a lawyer, can only provide their services within the organisation they’re employed by. So if they happen to belong to a rugby club or if someone they know is in need and has a consumer dispute, is having difficulty of a family law nature, they can’t actually, within their own professional rules, offer those services, because they lack the supervision. Now, I do want to say that supervision is important, and poor legal advice is sometimes worse than no legal advice, because you might miss some important matter, some important procedural point, some important point of law, and, in fact, that person will be put in a worse position than they were before they received their advice.

So one thing that the bill does do is it makes it clear that the provision of this advice should be regulated by the Law Society, and I hope that the Law Society, when it comes to make those rules—and an excellent set of rules they are—those additional rules, thinks very carefully about the need to have come checks.

I know from raw experience that a 21-year-old thrown into the hurly-burly of legal practice knows very little about what’s going on around him. That was me, and I must say that if I had been unleashed, giving pro bono work at that age, in complex legal situations, I would’ve done more harm than good. So we do need a degree of supervision to make sure that those legal services are appropriate.

The other reason I’m looking forward to this bill going to select committee—a very ably chaired select committee, if I may say so—is because there is an additional thing we need in there, and I hope it’s picked up, and that is that the current bill says that the Law Society may make those rules or the services must be delivered by rules which may be made by the Law Society. I think we need to direct the Law Society to make those rules, so they don’t have an option of not making the rules and by default suspending this piece of legislation. So we do need to go in there and make sure that the Law Society promptly makes appropriate rules, and the way it works is those rules are ultimately approved by the Minister of Justice. They are in fact a form of delegated legislation under the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act, and for those who find the Regulations Review Committee exciting, Mr Penk, you can go and disallow those rules if you want. So do do that.

When I first saw this bill I will admit to a little bit of an eye-roll—saying, “Well, this has never cropped up.” We know that lawyers offer legal advice pretty frequently, sometimes informally, sometimes a little more formally, and they don’t get disciplined for it. In many cases, it’s permissible. If it’s just giving a view on the law, it’s actually not a regulated legal service. Believe it or not, you don’t actually need to be a lawyer to give legal advice. Many other professions do that: immigration advisers; employment advocates; God forbid, accountants; and many others. So it’s not that aspect. It’s really some of those more technical aspects such as drafting court documents—that’s probably one of the main ones. But again, lawyers do assist with that in an unsupervised way, but they’re very rarely pulled up for it. But I do note that the client care rules, which are, essentially, the ethics code for lawyers, have tucked away in rule 2.1.1 the provision that if one lawyer discovers that another lawyer is offering these services outside of the professional rules, providing reserved areas of work when they don’t have the requisite qualification, they’re actually obliged to report that person.

Now, mandatory reporting is always a little bit tricky, right? We always feel a little bit uneasy about it, but here’s an instance—lawyers have significant mandatory reporting obligations and this is one of them. So you get into a little conundrum here, because someone’s doing something wrong, and you’re obliged to report them, but it’s not as wrong as perhaps we might think. We kind of approve of the theme of what they’re doing, what they’re trying to achieve. But if you don’t report them, you yourself are doing something wrong and are in breach of your ethics code. So that’s one of the reasons we need this rule, and it may well be that that rule is in turn examined again.

I think this is good in theory. It’s a pity that we, really, over the past term have been picking up the pieces of the chaos and destruction that the National Party wreaked on our justice system over the nine years—

💬 Maureen Pugh: Oh, what rubbish.

Maureen Pugh, you say it’s absolute rubbish. You go down to the Family Court and see what goes on there. You see the backlog that they’re still trying to clear. You see the families that have been split up and are still trying to pick up the pieces, parents still trying to get access to their children because of the absolute carnage that Judith Collins wreaked on our justice system when she was in charge.

If this is the best that your members can come up with—a little pro bono bill—we’re not going to be small-minded. We’re not going to vote it down. We’re going to let it go to select committee but for you to suggest that National did a good job of justice is absolutely fatuous, and it just goes to show you the quality of what goes on on the other side.

This is a Government that’s committed to good justice. It’s committed to supporting things like community law centres and thinks pro bono work is a great part of what our best lawyers do, and that’s why we’re supporting this bill tonight.

I’m very pleased to rise to speak on this important issue today. But I first—before I make three points flagging for the Justice Committee some issues for further inquiry at that stage, which the Government members will be supporting this bill to—want to just congratulate the chair of the Justice Committee Ginny Andersen for her work on the Holidays (Bereavement Leave for Miscarriage) Amendment Bill (No 2) tonight. And I raise that bill in this debate because it’s the chair of the Justice Committee’s work within her own party, and certainly with me, that has given me comfort to come to this debate tonight and be able to support this bill. And it’s with that mind-set of consensus building and that mind-set of leadership amongst all parties within this House that the member for Hutt South, Ginny Andersen, has approached this issue.

And I would also flag for the House’s attention just how busy the Justice Committee is. In agreeing to hear submitters on this bill in a midst of a Justice Committee, which is extremely busy, which has inquiries on foot, members’ bills to deal with, and Government legislation coming, you know, this is something which will require careful attention by the Government, and is being given time in a collegial way that I applaud the Justice Committee chair for allowing.

Now, I want to address three issues to flag for further consideration at the select committee stage. I think these issues go to the heart of what we mean when we say on this side of the House that we absolutely support access to justice within our communities and that we absolutely support lawyers being able to provide legal services in a way which is appropriate and in a way which actually serves our communities and means that people are getting good, useful legal advice. The first is this issue of where lawyers who have been admitted to the bar but who are not entitled to practise on their own account, are employed by one employer and are allowed to give legal advice to that one employer. I was one of those lawyers. Within five years of graduating from law school, I became an in-house counsel to an iwi and then was elevated to be that iwi’s counsel practising on my own. I wasn’t, at that point, allowed to practise on my own account because I hadn’t gone through the extra training that you might see partners in law firms stepping up to do or barristers who practise on their own accounts. Under this provision, a lawyer in that situation, who is young and inexperienced, but a subject matter expert, in my case in iwi governance and corporate governance, I would have been able, under this bill, to be able to provide pro bono services without any supervision, without any senior lawyers to turn to and consider the advice that I was giving to anyone who came through my door and asked for it. I would be able to provide housing advice for renters who sought advice about their landlord’s treatment of them. I would be able to provide my opinions about immigration law, which is an area which is highly specialised.

The point I make here is that even though members of this House might not find that at all surprising because we, as parliamentarians, give our opinions all the time, freely and generously, there’s a different status of lawyers who give legal advice. That legal advice should be able to be relied upon. It should be true. It should be correct. And it should put someone in a position where they know the law, the law is knowable to them, and that they can follow it to the letter. And I think the select committee would be wise to consider that issue very carefully about inexperienced lawyers being able to provide pro bono services without checks and balances.

The second issue I want to bring attention to for the select committee process is the place of community law in providing appropriately supervised services. It would’ve been fine for me, as a young lawyer, to be providing that kind of pro bono advice, which I’ve talked about, through a community law centre. It would have been fine because I would have had experienced lawyers there who saw those cases all the time, who I could turn to and ask for advice, and that would have been appropriate. Unfortunately, on that side of the House, they’ve gutted community law centres. They’ve taken away funding for services which were extremely vital to the community, and that’s why those lawyers aren’t able to get those services to community law right now. And this, in my view, would be a patch-up job.

The third issue that I want the select committee to be able to consider is whether this bill, as currently drafted, extends the special place of lawyers in our society to people who should not, appropriately, be using those special powers that lawyers have to give advice which can be relied upon and trusted. Thank you, it’s been a pleasure to speak on this issue, and I look forward to hearing it more at the Justice Committee.

Kia ora, Madam Speaker. The Greens support this bill, and I support the emphasis that the last two speakers have put on celebrating the work of community law centres—I’ve got quite a few friends that have worked in those—and acknowledging the work that they do across our country, making access to legal advice accessible for all of our communities.

My understanding of this bill is that it allows a lawyer who is an employee—for example, law practice or in-house lawyers—to do free legal work other than for the lawyer’s employer, on conditions set by the New Zealand Law Society. This is something that the Greens support because what it really gets down to is that it helps to encourage volunteers within our society, and those lawyers within our society that do pro bono work are a good example of that. One of our Green Party policies is around ensuring that Government policy across all departments recognises the contribution of volunteers and fosters a culture which promotes and supports volunteering in a key part of your community life, and that’s the direction this bill is taking.

I just think on the amount of pro bono lawyers that I’ve worked with over the years who have been able to work on environmental issues or work on issues within the community, and what this bill does is makes it a lot easier for them to do that. On that, the Greens support this bill. Cheers.

💬 Dr Emily Henderson: Mr Speaker—Madam Speaker.

I call Dr Emily Henderson.

I thank you for your forbearance in my misgendering you, Madam Speaker. I rise in support of this bill, and I want to tautoko what my colleague has just said. Our support of this bill to select committee stage is about not playing politics for politics’ sake, and I commend the work of our chair, Ginny Andersen, in the Justice Committee, and I know that the committee will give this the appropriate attention, because an idea that is reasonable should be explored. I speak to this as a practising lawyer in my past life and as the daughter of a lawyer. I was raised in a legal tradition that puts a great deal of emphasis on pro bono legal work. It is a longstanding tradition of the legal profession that we volunteer our time for others. In fact, I would just want to bend the House’s ear for a short moment with a little bit of legal history. Back in the Middle Ages when barristers first appeared—

💬 Chris Bishop: Bit of history.

I told you it was going to be history, Mr Bishop. Back in the Middle Ages when lawyers first appeared, you had two sorts. You had the barristers and you had the solicitors. Now, the solicitors were essentially educated clerks. They were performing technical work. The barristers were essentially people of independent income who were there in the courts to assist those less fortunate than themselves. And that is why it wasn’t until early last century that we started to admit that barristers got paid, because the whole point of being a barrister was that you did it for an honorarium—essentially for koha. That is actually why in the gowns that lawyers wear there is a long cord at the back with a small pocket at the end of it, and the idea was you threw your cord over your back, and hopefully the client might pop a little koha in the bottom. But you did it for access to justice. And that spirit, despite the fact that now we have a fused bar and we are barristers and solicitors—most of us around the world in Commonwealth traditions. Despite the fact we are now most of us practising as barristers and solicitors, that tradition of community service, of public service pro bono, remains. And that is the tradition in which I was raised as a lawyer. But it is a tough tradition.

It is tough, particularly when you consider what has happened to some of our courts and the way they were squeezed by the National Government. As a Family Court lawyer, I particularly find a sense of irony that we are being asked by Mr Bishop and his party to support the increase in volunteerism by lawyers—which is a fine tradition, all lawyers hold it very close to their heart—by the party who gutted my beloved Family Court. I have just come into this House from conducting a study of lawyers’ opinions about the practice of the Family Court. In particular from answering one of the major criticisms of the Family Court lawyer, which was the genesis of the 2014 reforms, it was to stigmatise lawyers as the cause of problems, as instigators of issues. And for that reason, we were removed in the first instance from assisting clients, and legal aid was slashed. That resulted in a massive upswing in the numbers of self-represented litigants, and it represented a massive upswing in the delays before the Family Court because they were denied the reality of legal service, which is that we are overwhelmingly the people who reduce dispute. It is so, in study after study internationally.

So while I am absolutely recommending that this bill go to select committee and be given all the scrutiny it needs, and I absolutely tautoko my colleagues in saying that the New Zealand Law Society needs to come before us and talk to us about the controls that need to be put in place, I do find it ironic—I do find it ironic to have to stand here. I am pleased to stand here because we need to start to support the Family Court again. And that is why I’m proud to be part of a Government that put $62 million into the Family Court. I am proud to be part of a Government that put $40.9 million into legal aid. I am proud to be part of a Government that put $1.7 million into community law. And I commend this bill to the House to select committee stage. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I rise on behalf of the ACT Party in support of this bill, Lawyers and Conveyancers (Employed Lawyers Providing Free Legal Services) Amendment Bill. I’m just going to call it the “Pro Bono Bill”. There’s questions on why we have so many people going to Citizens Advice Bureau community law services to try and get some help and assistance, and really it boils down to the fact that they can’t afford it. And if you google “free legal advice”, the first thing that you get that comes up on the screen is a whole lot of information about employment relations and trying to get free pro bono work through them.

The question that we need to be asking is why can we not utilise the ability of those with this learned knowledge to be able to share that knowledge outside of their current employment obligations to help those that are in need? And while I hear some of the arguments across the House from members about whether or not a person has enough experience to be able to take part in pro bono work, I think a person who’s done five years at least of legal study has some nous to be able to stand up and at least give some advice to others.

What we do need a lot more of is the utilisation of that learned knowledge so that the lawyers can help others to navigate themselves through the justice system to help those that may be in need, but to help those that are also in fear of the justice system and in fear of the unknown. By utilising pro bono lawyers, there is a chance that going into or entering into the justice system could be avoided. And if the right and opportune advice is given, then we could stop people from actually having to go through that justice system, and this bill will allow those opportunities to take place.

Those with a law degree should be able to entertain the idea that they can deliver some pro bono work. And I think, from what I’m hearing, we’re all in agreement with that. They should be able to do so without concern about their employment status, and that becomes a win-win for everybody. It’s a win for those that are seeking to help the disadvantaged, and, of course, it’s a win for those that are seeking help so that they’re not disadvantaged. And this bill has a noble aim: it is to improve access to justice, without compromising the standards of professional conduct and client care required under the rules.

The majority of people that need pro bono help or free legal advice are from low income backgrounds. They simply cannot afford the justice. And as I said earlier, this bill does allow for those opportunities. However, I do note that there’s questions that arise around the liability: who is responsible should the advice that’s given not be that helpful or be detrimental. And, at the moment, the people who are responsible, of course, are the employers, but we’re asking for lawyers to be able to go out there and give pro bono work without having to rely on an employer. So the question will remain: who is it that will be liable for the wrong advice if it’s given? And I think that that’s something that the Justice Committee, of which—

💬 Arena Williams: Good question.

Sorry?

💬 Arena Williams: Good question.

—I’m a part, should also look into in a way to determine how we can allow the lawyers to be able to help the individuals out there that need it to make sure that there’s no liability on them, but make sure that that access to justice and information is available.

So on that point, I do commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. My father, Hal Nash, is what you would call a community lawyer. He was—he gave his advice freely and willingly to organisations like Birthright. He was a patron and honorary lawyer of the Napier Sailing Club and would often be called aside at club events or when we were out as a family to give legal advice. He was one of those lawyers who actually believed that the law was there to help people, not make money. A true socialist, I suppose, but I saw firsthand the value that he added to organisations and I still hear community organisations say to me every now and again, “You know, your father was a very good lawyer. But not only was he a good lawyer, he was a good man.” And part of this is because he gave his time freely and when I say “freely”, I mean pro bono as well as at all times of the day or night to those who required or requested legal advice without going through the firm.

It’s my understanding from my Māori law friends that often they are called upon to give pro bono advice and they’re often torn on this because, you know, they can give pro bono advice, which is the right thing to do, but often it’s not necessary the legal thing to do. So I’m very keen to hear what the Māori legal practitioners society has to say on this as well, because the anomaly in the law that we’re trying to fix there has found many lawyers wanting and torn between doing the right thing and doing the legal thing. So this should fix this.

But most importantly, I suppose, the reason why I’m supporting this is because we now live in a society where transparency and accountability is demanded by members of organisations that may be charities, may be sports clubs and other organisations that are actually the threads that bind our communities together. Members demand the type of advice that allows them to make decisions that will hold up to scrutiny and also accountability. And if a lawyer is sitting on the board of one of these organisations or is a member of one of these organisations and he or she is not able to give their advice freely because they are outside the bounds of their employment contract, then I think what that does is it weakens the ability of a club or an organisation to act in a way that optimises whatever outcomes are required. What we know is happening in this day and age is there are more clubs, more charities, more community organisations stepping in to help those who are also finding more and more lawyers who, in fact, are doing the right thing and getting out there and helping.

I wonder if, in fact, the law, as it stands is actually preventing good lawyers who understand the constraints of the current legislation—from holding back on their voluntary obligations and duties from being a member of a club but not being allowed to provide the type of value that would add significantly to the governance or even just the membership of an organisation. I wonder if perhaps the perception that the general public has of lawyers—perhaps not as good and grand as some may believe; or perhaps not as good and grand as it should be—could be rehabilitated by more lawyers getting out there, giving their advice, and actually making it happen.

I have been myself on a number of boards, voluntary organisations, where lawyers have stepped in. One—there’s a guy called Martin Williams who is a very good friend of mine but is also a very good lawyer. He takes his roles and responsibilities on community governance organisations incredibly seriously. But he does so, I suspect now, not knowing the law before this, Dr Webb, taking into account that if he was to offer advice that was counter to information that had been received by other parties, he may, in fact, be breaking the law. The thing about this that I would be keen for Mr Bishop to talk about or, hopefully, it’ll come out in select committee, is that if, in fact, a lawyer provides information outside of their employment and that information is proven to be negligent or in some way can be challenged in court, whether a lawyer will be required to undertake their own or take out their own liability insurance. So that’s just a question around how a lawyer’s advice, when it is given pro bono but legally, stands up in a court of law in terms of their ability to be sued for that advice given.

But I think this is really good. This is a good bit of advice and the reason I say that is my experience with lawyers is they can add significant value to community organisations, to clubs, and to societies in a way that perhaps others can’t because they bring a level of advice that adds real value and if this allows us to do it within the bounds of the law, then that can only be good. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to take a call on the Lawyers and Conveyancers (Employed Lawyers Providing Free Legal Services) Amendment Bill. I would like to start by acknowledging my colleague and friend Chris Bishop, who has had the good fortune to have this bill pulled from the ballot, as well as the good sense to have put it in there in the first place! I salute those who provide free legal services. We’ve heard about a number of those tonight, those connected with members—Mr Nash Sr and others, many no doubt sitting in the Chamber who themselves have been in that position. For others, the phrase “pro bono” probably indicates that they’re in favour of the music of U2! But, nevertheless, there have been some intelligent contributions on the subject of pro bono legal services. And I do want to distinguish the kind of free legal services that some of us provided as junior lawyers when we were simply slack at recording our time when we were meant to be doing that in our various firms!

The phrase “pro bono”, of course, means “for the good”. So it’s for the public good that we have the ability for lawyers to provide their services for free. That’s a good thing for society. It’s a good thing, of course, for the individuals who are helped in that way, be it natural persons or perhaps clubs or other groups within the community, and that’s the very opposite of misconduct, which, of course, is the technical way that the law would have to view such services being provided if outside the scope of the normal employment of a person who happens to be a registered lawyer but is otherwise acting outside that realm. So the idea is good. The provisions in the bill seem good. I think it’s reasonable to say that these could be looked at by the select committee, and the bill advancing to that stage is good as well. I commend it to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise tonight to take a call on the Lawyers and Conveyancers (Employed Lawyers Providing Free Legal Services) Amendment Bill. As has been mentioned, we are supporting this bill through to the select committee stage. In principle, I support anything that ensures greater access by our communities—particularly those most vulnerable and in need—to legal advice. I also want to encourage anyone watching today, any lawyers, any organisations, who might be affected by this bill, to make submissions in the select committee stage. I am particularly keen, although I am not on the Justice Committee, to follow that discussion through.

The premise of this bill before us tonight is that it is going to amend section 9 of the existing Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006. Under section 9 as it currently reads, employed lawyers are barred, essentially, from providing pro bono work or free legal services to anyone outside their employer or to the public on behalf of their employer; if they were to do so, then they would be found guilty of misconduct, which creates a whole raft of issues and questions about whether they are a fit and proper person to practise law.

But, currently, many lawyers face the dilemma where they often get asked by people in their community, through community groups, through friends and family, to help out, to “Just have a quick look at this tenancy issue for me” or tenancy agreement or “Would you mind having a look at the sports constitution for our football club?”, and the like. If an employed lawyer were to do so at this point in time, then, as mentioned, they’d be guilty of misconduct.

It is worth noting at this point, I think, to those unfamiliar with the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act, that in its current form, the purposes section of the Act states that the Act is “to maintain public confidence in the provision of legal services and conveyancing services: … [that it is] to protect the consumers of legal services and conveying services: … [and] to recognise the status of the legal profession”.

Now, I would like to note that earlier this evening someone across the House mentioned that anyone who’s been to law school and managed to obtain a law degree should be able to go out and provide free legal services to those who ask. I’m not sure that I wholeheartedly agree with that. You see, having gone through law school, it is a little bit like a sampler box: you spend five or so years trying a little bit of a whole lot. By no means do you leave law school as an expert in much of anything. You’ve got to go out and you’ve got to spend that time doing the hard yards under supervision and with that support and guidance of somebody who’s already gone before you to do those hard yards, and is then entitled to practise on their own account and provide the supervision.

So I think something that should be canvassed by the select committee is: what oversights could be put in place to ensure it is only those who can provide sound legal advice and uphold the public confidence in the legal profession and protect consumers against bad legal advice. So I’m really interested to see what the select committee comes up with in that respect.

Like my colleague Arena, I was also somebody who’s worked as an employed lawyer; in-house lawyer. And, yes, it would have been nice, having been the first in my family, amongst my peer group, to have obtained a law degree, to be able to have said yes to some of those requests that came in, as soon as I received my law degree, for some help or support or “Can you just have a look at this for me?”

But, likewise, one of my very first jobs was actually at a community law centre, Community Legal Advice Whanganui—and I would like to shout-out to them and acknowledge the incredible work that they do to support our communities. So I have seen the work that they do to try and meet that unmet legal need in our communities, and a lot of them run on the smell of an oily rag. So I’m also really keen to hear from the community law sector about what impact this bill would have on that sector and whether there are any unforeseen consequences. So, for those reasons, I commend this bill to the House and to select committee.

Thank you, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity to take a call on the Lawyers and Conveyancers (Employed Lawyers Providing Free Legal Services) Amendment Bill. I agree that at its core this is a bill about ensuring access to justice, which for me is an issue very close to my heart. Having spent nine years working in community law at YouthLaw Aotearoa as a solicitor and then as the general manager, I cannot tell you how much we relied not just on volunteer lawyers but also law students, who really helped us deliver to those people who otherwise simply wouldn’t have access to legal services.

But with such a significant and long history in community law, I have to say I, like a few other colleagues, find it very frustrating this evening. My colleague Duncan Webb mentioned the word “hypocrisy”, and that is what I’m feeling now—[Interruption]—or he may not have, but I do think that he spoke about the fact that there wasn’t adequate funding for community law. Over the nine years that I was in community law, it was a time when the National Government failed to adequately fund us to do the work that we needed to. Our funding was, essentially, frozen. With increased costs and increased demand, what it actually meant was that we had a decrease in funding. What was also really frustrating is during a period of those nine years the National Government at that stage decided they would no longer fund community law centres to do law reform work, which meant that we couldn’t identify those systemic issues and make submissions on them.

So yes, it is about ensuring that lawyers are able to provide voluntary services, but, actually, it’s also about ensuring that there are adequate services—adequate funding for our community law services—as well. This will never replace those fundamental services that we already have in place.

I am supporting this bill to proceed to select committee, but I will be looking forward to hearing the submissions that are made by community law centres and others, particularly in relation to issues like my colleague Arena Williams has referred to, in ensuring that there is proper oversight for the advice given when there needs to be. I do think we need to reflect carefully on that at select committee. I am a member of the Justice Committee.

There’s an article, on point, just speaking to the broader reasons why we should be supporting pro bono work and for lawyers to be engaged in pro bono work, and it’s written by Nadine Strossen and published in the Michigan Law Review. It highlights what I would call the three goods rationale for why we should be encouraging lawyers to engage in this work.

The first is for the public good. It is an access to justice issue, and we do need to supplement the work of community law centres with that volunteer connection that all lawyers should be delivering to communities—albeit some potentially under supervision.

The second is actually for the good of the profession itself. There’s a saying that goes “Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have a right to do and what is right to do.”, and this bill enables the whole profession to further develop its ethical connection to its function and what is right to do.

The third, and by no means the last, is we should make changes in this area—we should encourage lawyers to engage in pro bono work—for the good of the lawyer. In 2018, the Mental Health Foundation estimated that one in five lawyers would suffer from mental health issues in any given year, including from depression and anxiety. As senior lawyer Sarah Taylor said, it’s time to kick the door down on conversations about mental health in the legal profession. It’s time to ensure that we’re encouraging lawyers to engage with their communities and for them to be able to respond and say yes when they’re asked to help. It’s time that we encouraged entities that are companies, of law firms, to get involved in that giving community space as well. I commend this bill to the House.

Oh thank you very much, Madam Speaker, and I want to say thank you to you for your chairmanship, but I also want to say thank you to colleagues across the House for their support of this bill. It’s a good thing to see, and I’m sure the Justice Committee will do a good job of considering it.

I didn’t take this opportunity in my first five-minute call to explain the origins of the bill because I was conscious that we had the maiden speeches coming up, and I wanted to get through the five minutes. But one of the things I said to myself that I would do when I became an MP is I would take every opportunity to try and change the law for the better. I’ve got this quite serious view that we’re here to try and improve public policy. When I first became an MP, I was a list MP in Government, and I’m not being too pejorative or cynical, but for those list MPs who are now in Government, you may find that there are limited opportunities, particularly in a large caucus, to display your wares, so to speak. So I said to myself, “Well, I’ll go off and try and find some things to make myself useful and try and change the law.” And the first thing I did was I inherited a bill from Michael Woodhouse around organ donation and that got passed, and then I drafted another bill around an amendment to the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Act, and that got passed. So I’ve just kind of made it a little mission of mine to try and find small but significant changes to the law that can be advanced through a member’s bill process, because Parliament is here to make law and change the law for the better.

And this came about because I was on holiday in Mexico, lying on the beach reading the Law Society—

💬 Dr Duncan Webb: No, no! The horror!

I know. Duncan Webb’s thinking, “What a sad man.” It was New Year’s—it wasn’t actually New Year’s, but it was close to that and I was in Mexico, and I was reading LawTalk, which is the New Zealand Law Society’s weekly magazine, and there was an article by a guy called John McLean, who was the general counsel for Rabobank. And he’d encouraged the Law Society to make this change on their own volition, and the Law Society was pretty reluctant to do so. And he’d written an article for LawTalk basically excoriating the Law Society, saying we should make this change. And I read it and thought, “Well, that just doesn’t make any sense. Why is it the case that an employed lawyer cannot do pro bono work outside their job without the permission of their employer?” That doesn’t make any sense. So I thought, “Well, that’s a perfect little member’s bill.” And as you can see, it’s a six-clause member’s bill. And we chucked it into the ballot, it got pulled, and now it’s going to be considered by the Justice Committee.

I want to pick up on a couple of points that were made in the debate. The first is in relation to Dr Webb’s suggestion around mandating the Law Society make rules: I think that’s a sensible suggestion. It’s certainly something that can be considered in committee. The last thing we want to do is change the law and then have the Law Society sit on the necessary regulatory mechanisms to make the law work. So I agree that that’s a good idea. In relation to insurance, my suggestion is that employed lawyers should simply be required to, essentially, describe what professional indemnity insurance they have, and I think that can be covered off.

In relation to the point around the community law centres, which members opposite in particular have raised, I note that and I agree with you. They do a fantastic job in the community. It’s worth noting that I’ve had a brief conversation with Sue Moroney, who will be well known to members opposite, who is, I believe, the chief executive of Community Law Centres o Aotearoa. I ran into her, as often happens in this place, in the Beehive foyer. And she said, “Oh, I need to come talk to you about your bill. We’re pretty supportive of it,”—I hope I’m not misquoting her—“but we’re keen to come and have a yarn about how exactly it will all work.” So I strongly suspect they will be making a submission to the committee, and I encourage Sue to do that. Fair to say Sue and I didn’t see eye to eye when she was an MP and I was an MP. I think we overlapped by only three years. We didn’t get on so well, but, as often happens, you tend to get on better with former MPs in this place when they’ve left the Chamber. So I welcome Sue’s contribution at the select committee process.

So look, I think this is a sensible change. As I noted in my first comments, many people are surprised to discover it’s not already the law. I welcome members’ comments around access to justice and improving the rule of law. I think it is a sensible change. I look forward to working with the select committee to try and shepherd it through the House in the months to come. Thank you.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a first time.

The question is, That the Lawyers and Conveyancers (Employed Lawyers Providing Free Legal Services) Amendment Bill be considered by the Justice Committee.

Motion agreed to.

Bill referred to the Justice Committee.