The impervious Gary Gotlieb

Gary Gotlieb

Just in case you don't know what Gary Gotlieb does for a living, the car parked outside his Jervois Rd office is a bright red Alfa Romeo sports car with a plate which reads ACQUIT.

This is the first sign that he is no shrinking violet. "I'm a great believer in saying what I think."

Which is rather the reason we've come to see him. "Possibly."

He has been saying what he thinks about legal aid fees and what he has been saying is that he's not going to do any more legal aid until the rates are put up.

He is taking what he calls "direct action". He has accused the Government of "emotional blackmail".

He, I tell him, is engaging in emotional blackmail. "Well, I think it's almost saying to the Government, you have to be kicked up the backside to actually stop and think about this and they've put us off for so many years."

So he is engaging in emotional blackmail? "No, that's your words, it's not my words."

Well, is he? "I'm engaging in personal direct action. And I've been contacted by huge numbers of lawyers. You should have seen me today. I walked though two courts and people were just coming up and patting me on the back."

He's the president of the Auckland District Law Society and they are no doubt used to him saying what he thinks. He is in his second year as president, which is not the etiquette. You are supposed to do one year then stand aside for someone else. But, "I'm a great believer in the best person for the job."

I have an hour with him and by the end of it I am pretty much resigned to losing any argument I'm stupid enough to attempt.

We have quite a long one about how nobody is going to have any sympathy with lawyers complaining about legal aid rates of between $130 and $160 an hour.

He wins by banging on about overheads. But still - a cheap shot - he could cut his overheads by selling the car? He says ,"So? You've got have some midlife crisis solaces."

If you can tell a bit about somebody by what they have on their office walls, then what to make of the fact that what Gotlieb has on his are lots of pictures of Gotlieb (and some of his wife). Including, because he is mad keen on endurance running and ocean swimming, one of him in his Speedos. I suppose you could admire this candid advertisement. You walk into his office and you already know quite a lot about the man you've just hired to keep you out of the pokey. You can tell that he's competitive to the core. Even his leisure time is spent attempting to win things.

There is another possible interpretation. Here is a subtle way of testing it. I say, "Imagine having a picture of yourself in your office in Speedos!" "I don't give a shit," he says. Well, obviously, but "are you vain?" "No! No, I don't think I'm vain. My children, well they're adults now, they run down the beach with board shorts because I'm walking down the beach with my Speedos on. I'm just going in the bloody water for a swim, why do I need to go down in board shorts." Aah, because he's embarrassing them. "I know."

Most people would take offence at being asked if they're vain. It takes more than I can muster to offend Gotlieb. He's pretty much impervious. Anyway, he enjoys much more dangerous activities than an interview with me. "I've rescued people in big surf. Other people won't go and get them [and] you know they're going to bloody drown if you don't go out there." He does "cos I'm a good swimmer". And a hard man. "I used to be a hard man. I'm actually mentally hard."

To demonstrate this, he tells a story about how when he'd finished his law degree he "went back and did a Master's. We'd lost a daughter in cot death and I threw myself into a Master of Laws. And what I did, because I'm disciplined, I'd work every night from 10 o'clock till 2 in the morning. And ended up getting a Master of Laws with honours."

He always wanted to be a defence lawyer; was never interested in prosecuting. "I probably like helping the underdog." Does he mean all those crooks and rogues and mad people? "I try and level the scales a bit."

It is possible he attempts to level the scales a bit and get back at me for the Speedo remarks because he phones me at 7.36am on Good Friday. Because, he says, he wants to tell me some more stories about his university days. Including the one about how he was a Craccum centrefold under the name Clyde Thrust. He was sans even Speedos "but you couldn't see my goolies."

Yes, thank you, Gary.

WHEN I tell him he'd better watch it, he says, "I know I'm being a prick," and continues, undaunted, with more Gotlieb stories.

When he leaves the message - he must think I'm crazy if he thinks I'm going to be answering a phone at that hour on a holiday - he says, "Strong Man here."

This is because I had asked about him describing himself as "the hard man" who got rid of struck-off lawyer Christopher Harder. It was, actually, "strong man" he points out. He's right, of course, and when I have to concede this he laughs triumphantly but says graciously that that's all right, he was wrong once. "About 15 years ago."

He says now that he was asked if he was the strong man who got rid of Harder and when he agreed, was quoted as saying so. Whatever happened, and he must be right because he always is, he doesn't object to the description. In fact, he compounds it by telling a story about someone throwing a hard-boiled egg at him at a student forum and how he marched down the lecture theatre, identified the culprit, dragged him out in front of everyone. Then later, in his capacity as chair of the student disciplinary committee, fined the egg thrower. "Everyone thought I was a prick."

No, of course it didn't bother him. It was an early victory for the strong man.

As if it's not bad enough interviewing a prominent lawyer - the way he's always described - there is the added worry that he's going to go through the finished product with his legal eye. And that you are going to get a call from his lawyer: Prominent lawyer and strong man Gary Gotlieb.

So I ask him to say into the tape that he's not going to sue. What he says is: "I'm not going to sue you for too much." Well, I'm not going to charge him too much for that phone call, so we should end up abouteven.

He'd already been up for two hours before he called because, he says, he's going away. I suspect he's up at an ungodly hour every morning. The day we go to see him he was in the pool at 6am, swimming 3km. He says that, at 61, the only way he's been able to go on doing the hard work of jury trials is because of his fitness. At the pool, "everyone in my lane's half my age because I'm a good swimmer. It's all good fun, I get "Come on Granddad'."

He's knows quite a good lawyer joke related to his swimming. "I do big ocean swims and people used to say, 'Aren't you scared of sharks?' And I say, 'They don't attack their own'."

He used to shave his legs for bike riding but "I've grown my leg hairs back again. I won't show you my legs but they're pretty good. Ha, ha, ha."

He takes being fit very seriously and he likes to help other people, just "average", overweight people, get fit too. It helps that he is "genetically gifted". His resting heart rate "is about 30". No, I didn't ask about either the legs or the heart rate. Who would have thought to?

There is really nothing I can tell you about Gotlieb that he can't, and probably would, tell you about himself. What I can say is that I agree with every word of it.

I ask him if he's a really good lawyer and he says: "I think so ... Well, you can't actually be not confident. I am very confident. I was always a confident bastard."

But I'm not letting a lawyer get the last word. So I'll just remind him that I have on tape, Mr Gary Gotlieb, prominent lawyer, saying: "I don't mind getting a bit of bollocks. What the hell."