Legal aid cancelled for three lawyers

File photo / Herald on Sunday

The Legal Services Agency (LSA) and the New Zealand Law Society are refusing to say whether three Auckland lawyers who are no longer able to provide legal aid services are being investigated by police.

The LSA today said Iuni Sapolu, Josie Fuimaono-Sapolu and Brett Ravelich had their approvals to provide legal aid service cancelled for failing "to meet the standards and obligations required".

LSA spokeswoman Bronwyn Bannister refused to go into specifics as to why they were no longer able to provide legal aid services but said the Law Society had been informed.

"We can't comment on a specific case in case it hampers any investigation that may take place," Ms Bannister said.

She refused to say whether or not police were investigating any of the lawyers.

A spokeswoman for the Law Society also refused to say whether they were investigating the three lawyers but said they were still able to practice in areas outside legal aid.

The Lawyers and Conveyances Act meant only a standards committee could publish whether an investigation was taking place, she said.

The three lawyers legal aid clients had been notified and would be reassigned to other lawyers unless in was impractical, the LSA said.

"However these lawyers will not be assigned new clients and all cases will be reassigned or completed within a specific timeframe," the LSA said.

General manager Stuart White said the LSA was working to improve the quality of legal aid representation following Dame Margaret Bazley's review of the legal aid system, which found significant issues with the quality of services and with the mechanisms to manage the quality and efficiency of services.

"Legal aid is publicly funded and the public need to have confidence in the quality and professional integrity of the services provided by legal aid lawyers," Mr White said.

"We recognise that by far the majority of the 3000 legal aid lawyers provide very good service, and act with integrity. However, we inform the public which lawyers can do legal aid work, so we should also ensure the public knows which lawyers cannot."

In future the names of legal aid lawyers whose listings were cancelled for failing to meet the standards and obligations required would be published on the LSA website.

Cancellation could also be made on administrative grounds and those lawyers' names would not be published but would be removed from the online lawyer listing as part of the regular monthly update.

Mr White said that under the Privacy Act, there were restrictions on the information it could supply on individuals.

- NZPA