Hierophantic Human graduated with a Masters of Law earlier this year. Photo / Facebook
Hierophantic Human graduated with a Masters of Law earlier this year. Photo / Facebook
An inexperienced lawyer has been denied a practising certificate that would allow him to work solo.
Hierophantic Harlequinesque Human had 18 months of experience as a lawyer roughly eight years ago but appealed to the New Zealand Law Society late last year for a licence to work as a barrister sole.
At that hearing Human accused the Law Society of having “institutional bias” against him and said that a substantial miscarriage of justice had occurred.
While there’s no formal period set down in regulation about how much time a lawyer must train for after being admitted to the bar before going out on their own, they do have to meet a minimum standard of competency.
Human graduated and was admitted to the bar in 2005. Following that he practised under a barrister for seven months before practising on his own for 11 months.
Nowadays the requirement is that newly qualified lawyers practice under guidance for three years but regulations under the Lawyer’s and Conveyancers Act were different at the time.
Human’s practising certificate lapsed in 2011 and in 2014 he successfully appealed against a Law Society decision to reject his application for a sole practising certificate.
He then went overseas in 2015 for some time, returning to complete a Master of Laws but he hasn’t practised as a lawyer since then.
As part of his evidence Human said he’d recently taken several extra-curricular law courses and had completed a Master’s Degree.
Hierophantic Human argued his case before the Lawyers and Conveyancers Disciplinary Tribunal last year. Photo / Facebook
He also said while working as front-of-house staff at the Rydges Hotel he’d listened in on a law conference held in one of their meeting rooms, had sat in on a lengthy courtroom trial, and had successfully argued his own tenancy dispute through the Tenancy Tribunal, stating that these counted as recent experience.
However, in a finding released yesterday, the Lawyers and Conveyancers Disciplinary Tribunal rejected Human’s appeal.
“The New Zealand Law Society does not want to prevent Mr Human from practising law. It wishes to prevent him from embarking on a course in which he seems likely to struggle, and probably fail,” the tribunal said in its decision.
“It wishes to protect the public from an inadequately experienced, unsupervised practitioner. It wishes to protect the profession from reputational loss that can ensue where an inexperienced practitioner blunders.”
The tribunal said that Human was of “undisputed good character”, was intelligent and articulate, and had a formal education superior to most lawyers.
However, he simply didn’t have enough practical experience to work as a lawyer unsupervised.
“As yet, he has insufficient experience to go solo. That is all there is to it. His failure to accept that situation concerns us,” the tribunal said.
His mentor in 2014 reported quarterly to the Law Society and described Human as a “bit of a lost soul” and expressed concerns about the lack of volume of his work.
It was something the tribunal debated when making its decision.
“Should we not simply give Mr Human a practising certificate and let him try to make a go of it? Are we being overly protective of Mr Human, the public, and the reputation of the profession, if we refuse to do so?”
However, ultimately the tribunal recommended that Human seek full-time employment to get more experience before attempting to go out on his own.
“With a decent period of tutelage, he could realise his ambition to become an independent practitioner.”
