Buried treasures: Lawyers putting squeeze on bill

By FRAN O'SULLIVAN

National MP Judith Collins warns that "huge forces" are against any change allowing legal privilege to be waived so law firms can be investigated.

Legislation before the Justice and Electoral Select committee provides some small ability for independent legal investigating bodies to get behind the cloak of privilege and acquire documents from lawyers.

But under the Lawyers and Conveyancers' Bill, lawyers will in most cases still be able to use privilege as a protection when their own actions are under the microscope.

But Ms Collins said she expected even this small change to be wiped by a Government Supplementary Order Paper when the legislation comes back to Parliament.

"The reality is that the legal establishment - and particularly the big firms - they have such resources and such a whopping range of contacts and friendships that I don't see this getting through."

Ms Collins said. "There's not a lot of clean hands there. My gut feeling is the Government probably will stick to the status quo."

A former president of the Auckland District Law Society, which took the complaint against Russell McVeagh, Ms Collins this week revealed she came under pressure to "let it go".

"The pressure that came from certain members of the legal establishment was absolutely appalling," Ms Collins said.

"I got a phone call that said, 'This will be a very bad thing for the legal profession, Judith, if this went ahead'.

"My reply was "that it would be a very bad thing for the legal profession that it didn't."

In 1999, Ms Collins decided to run for the presidency of the New Zealand Law Society "even though I knew I wouldn't get it".

"I did it because I wasn't going to let the establishment have their own way."

She lost to Hamilton candidate Christine Grice.

The National associate justice spokeswoman acknowledged that the issues around legal privilege were complex. But she said there should not be laws that "could protect [the] guilty just because they are lawyers ... I find the whole thing quite bizarre.

"If you can't get to the facts because all the people involved happen to be lawyers - and they have clearly given certain advice to others and it's all tied up and you can't investigate because you can't get to the facts - it's like Catch 22."

The select committee - due to report back on May 3 - is chaired by Labour MP Tim Barnett. Other lawyers on the committee include Act MP Stephen Franks and National's Richard Worth.