Power saves community law centres
The NZ Herald reports:
The Government has rescued about 120 jobs in community law centres that were threatened by a collapse in revenue from lawyers’ trust funds.
Justice Minister Simon Power received an emotional standing ovation from staff of the 27 law centres when he told their annual meeting that he would maintain their funding in the year starting in July at the same level as in the current year, around $11 million.
Speaks for itself. I think community law centres do a wonderful job so don’t mind the temporary assistance. It is important that people are able to understand their rights under the law.
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Tags: Simon Power
March 12th, 2009 at 4:05 pm
As posters here keep reminding us, the government has no money of its own, it is all taxpayer money.
Maybe in the interests of truth you could rewrite your headline to reflect that?
How about Taxpayers save community law centres?
Or is it only taxpayer money when Labour spends it?
March 12th, 2009 at 4:18 pm
Piss off Jack.
March 12th, 2009 at 4:22 pm
Ooooh Lucy, such a convincing argument. I have never met a better debater. I though dad4justice and redbaiter were the best by far, but you are just soooooo good, I really don’t think I can continue. I must concede to your overwhelming intellectual prowess, your ability to grab varied concepts and distill them in to a simple cup of piss.
In fact, I’d go so far as to say you are so brilliant you no doubt have regular sex without even needing a partner.
March 12th, 2009 at 4:24 pm
MNIJ is dead right.
11 million here, 20 million there, 1.5 billion, 2 billion…
When is this fucking lunacy going to stop?, this is money that belongs in the pockets of the tax payer, once again I am being asked to fund those who cannot afford to pay commercial rates to lawyers.
Those lawyers who milk the legal aide gravy train are the ones who should be funding community law centres NOT the tax payer.
March 12th, 2009 at 4:25 pm
I agree, DPF. This was a looming disaster, one that would have put access to justice further out of reach for most ordinary folks. Good on Power for stepping up (and Bill English for giving him the cash to do so).
“Those lawyers who milk the legal aide gravy train are the ones who should be funding community law centres NOT the tax payer.”
Ummm … where do you think legal aide comes from?
March 12th, 2009 at 4:27 pm
The entity which claims identification as Jack is correct, but leaves out the issue of how taxpayer funds are spent at the direction of the governing party and in accordance with the ideology of the governing party [Labour- feather-bedding allies; National- efficiency first]. Perhaps the headline should read: “Power directs taxpayer money to save community law centres as being more productive than socialist welfare departments and the consequences of persons ignorant of the law being criminalised or driven into penury by their ignorance”?
Nah- “Power saves community law centres” is more efficient a statement. Good on you though, entity which claims identification as Jack, for realising the need for consistency and that all Crown monies are taken from the taxpayers; on the former, headlines are by tradition abbreviations rather than full statements, but on the latter- well done: you understand that the Crown must give value.
March 12th, 2009 at 4:29 pm
Anyone with the name ‘Jack” would be advised to avoid references to masturbation, lest they be advised to ‘Jack Off, Jack’…
March 12th, 2009 at 4:32 pm
Simon Power should be congratulated for this. This might be the first thing that this Government has done that should be congratulated for without reservation.
I know how much these community law centres do on tiny budgets, and don’t begrudge them a cent. They help people out of conflicts with the law, which would cost them, their families, business, and Government much more. They do put strict limits on what they provide, mainly as a function of their limited budgets, so you can hardly say that they’re being gouged by clients.
March 12th, 2009 at 4:33 pm
big bruv, you get me wrong. Like DPF, I support community law centres, I just want consistency in the way the Righteous Idealogues of the Right refer to state expenditure.
No doubt, big bruv, in a similar vein you would like to see an end to funding police; after all, why should you have to fund those who can’t afford the commercial rates of private security firms, private investigators and bodyguards?
GMMcK, I have always expected value for my $tax, don’t always get it, but expect it and am prepared to hold to account those who do not deliver value.
March 12th, 2009 at 4:34 pm
Grant Michael McKenna (496) Vote: 0 0 Says:
March 12th, 2009 at 4:29 pm
Anyone with the name ‘Jack” would be advised to avoid references to masturbation, lest they be advised to ‘Jack Off, Jack’…
maybe you can build a time machine, go back 57 years and tell my parents that.
March 12th, 2009 at 4:36 pm
Big bruv. Fuck off. I am sick of sweeping assertions about legal aid . Why the hell should lawyers be forced to pay for community law centres let alone the worst paid and most abused lawyers who have the misfortune to do legal aid? I do legal aid. It means I work about half as many hours again to make the same money as my commercial colleagues.
Would be worth noting that the community law branches can’t run without lawyers volunteering.
March 12th, 2009 at 4:40 pm
Yes But there is a point that whilst the well off can afford the cost of legal advice and the poor get legal aid or community law office advice the vast majority in the ‘middle’ have to find the resources to pay for their own advice. This after paying probably the highest portion of tax given the well off will have arranged their affairs to pay a lower amount of tax.
This is the area that we freedom fighters object to in not only this but many other issues.
The so called ‘middle classes get double raped every time they both pay taxes so others get what they are denied and pay for the same service as well.
And thats why we want lower taxes for all less Gimint in our lives and better value from the services Gumint does provide.
March 12th, 2009 at 4:42 pm
Community law centres are a good investment – certainly result in corrections savings. Power did well and Dalziell made the good suggestions he picked up. Power has shown he can identify issues where he can work with all other parties.
March 12th, 2009 at 4:42 pm
The so called ‘middle classes get double raped every time they both pay taxes so others get what they are denied and pay for the same service as well.
Awesome call.
I sometimes wonder if there is such a thing as the middle class anymore.
March 12th, 2009 at 4:47 pm
They get half of the money from lawyer’s trust accounts as well. Who gets the other half? Well, the banks reckon they need that to administer the scheme!
Anyway, this: “Those lawyers who milk the legal aide gravy train are the ones who should be funding community law centres NOT the tax payer.” is just dumb, dumb, dumb. How on earth is this supposed to be a serious comment? Criminal legal aid is undertaken by 8% of the legal profession yet we are the bad people? Hard to get more stupid that that, bruv.
March 12th, 2009 at 4:49 pm
Hard to get more stupid that that, bruv.
Don’t worry, he’ll keep trying, and maybe tomorrow he’ll succeed.
March 12th, 2009 at 4:53 pm
GPT1
“Big bruv. Fuck off.”
Does that eloquent style work well in court?
It might be why you have to rely on legal aid.
March 12th, 2009 at 4:59 pm
MNIJ
Of course I do not want private funding for the police, any gummint’s job is to police the people, defend the people and provide a gummint to legislate against the worst excesses of human behaviour.
That is about it, if there must be legal aid then let it be provided by the legal profession, after all the bastards think nothing of charging a small fortune for the smallest task imaginable.
March 12th, 2009 at 4:59 pm
Nice one Trev!
XChequer
http://thenzhomeoffice.blogspot.com/
March 12th, 2009 at 5:03 pm
From the article: “Law centres spokesman Kevin Campbell said the centres had faced a $7 million cut because of recent falls in house sales and interest rates, which have cut the centres’ funding from the interest earned on house settlement money in lawyers’ trust accounts.”
I notice that they don’t mention in it the amount that the banks take out to ‘administer’ the scheme, as I pointed out in my last post. I sat on a Community Law Centre board for 5 years and we had constant struggles with the LSA over the funding of the centre. We were always facing a large shortfall and they were only ever wanting to give minute increase at any one time. But what struck me the most was the way that the banks fought tooth and nail to hold on to their share of the interest from the law firms trust accounts. So the article is somewhat misleading in that respect, because there could be a whole lot more funding if the banks weren’t so greedy.
March 12th, 2009 at 5:07 pm
BB, it is impossible for those lawyers who “milk the legal aid gravy train” to pay for the centres. These lawyers are mostly barristers who are prohibited from running trust accounts thereby earn no interest on client funds. It is the interest earned on trust money that pays for things like community law centres so barristers, by definition, cannot contribute. That would reduce the 8% mentioned above to about .25%. I don’t do legal aid (I turned the “opportunity” down years ago) as I don’t wish to rely on the state for my income but the lawyers who do it are well underpaid and perform a valuable service.
I find attitudes to lawyers are much like those to cops: you hate them until you need them then they are your best friend.
March 12th, 2009 at 5:10 pm
“That is about it, if there must be legal aid then let it be provided by the legal profession, after all the bastards think nothing of charging a small fortune for the smallest task imaginable.”
Quite right. Every lawyer should give up say 20% of their annual income to provide a legal aid service, so that you need give up 0.000% of your own. Because it’s lawyers, not society at large, that should show compassion for the poor & helpless.
Similarly builders, plumbers, electricians, architects and engineers should be made to give up their services for free every year to do a certain number of new state houses. Overcharging bastards/rich pricks, they owe us…
March 12th, 2009 at 5:13 pm
BB: “That is about it, if there must be legal aid then let it be provided by the legal profession, after all the bastards think nothing of charging a small fortune for the smallest task imaginable.”
Go show your ignorance to someone else. Like GPT1 said, the law centres operate because employed lawyers are prepared to accept low wages and because other lawyers are willing to volunteer their time on a regular basis. In my area, we have a dozen or so rostered on each week to provide free legal advice, rather than representation. Without the lawyers willing to give of their own free time the centre could not operate.
So come on, Bruv, if Legal Aid lawyers are among the ‘bastards’ who “think nothing of charging a small fortune for the smallest task imaginable’, tell me why we don’t have free clinics run by doctors who receive no money for their time (when they charge and earn far more than the lawyers), why we don’t have free accountancy clinics run by accountants? Why not? If lawyers should be taxed (because that is what it would be) extra just for being lawyers, if we are ‘bastards’ because we take cases on legal aid, why don’t other professions have to stump up and give of their time for free as well. The only one I see even close is the charity hospital in Christchurch. Certainly nothing from any other profession on the scale that Law Centres provide. And don’t forget that Community Law Centres were not set up by the Legal Services Agency, but out of the organisation and efforts of local law students (if near a university) and lawyers.
Come on, Bruv, back up your statements.
March 12th, 2009 at 5:16 pm
Good comments, Gooner, but that 8% includes all criminal legal aid lawyers who do even one case in a year. More correctly, under 300 lawyers (about 280, or 2.8% of the profession) do 70% of the criminal legal aid work in this country.
And you are also right in that most of us are barristers. Very few firms, especially in the big cities, allow their staff to undertake legal aid any more. But you know what is even more sad is that if you go down to my local community law centre you will find that most of the people on the roster are also barristers, many of whom do legal aid as well. For some reasons, the lawyers from the firms just don’t seem as interested in helping out.
March 12th, 2009 at 5:22 pm
Why do not the lawyer’s clients whose money might be temporarily residing in the Trust Account not get the interest.
I’m puzzled!
Any time I have had funds pass through an accountant’s trust account I got the interest added when it was paid over.
Now Real Estate Agents Trust Accounts — there’s another issue.
March 12th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
No. It’s only taxpayer money when Labour wastes it. In other words, most of the time.
I know little of community law centres, other than from a neighbour who got some very good advice in respect of a [turned out to be] shonky property developer. At the time he couldn’t have paid for the advice, but it helped give said shonky one a rocket. So I’m happy these centres won’t be closing.
March 12th, 2009 at 5:39 pm
GPT1
“Big bruv. Fuck off.”
Does that eloquent style work well in court?
Heh, yeah. Although my ability to put an issue succinctly works well.
Seriously though it gets pretty tiring hearing the same bollocks attacks on your profession and your income time and time again. Some times a good vent is required.
F E Smith is in charge of non abusive defence. I’m going to go and kick the metaphorical cat.
David – this is money that is “passing through” as it were. Money can and is often put on term deposit for the benefit of a client but lots of small sums (under a thousand) are not.
March 12th, 2009 at 5:42 pm
I find attitudes to lawyers are much like those to cops: you hate them until you need them then they are your best friend.
Isn’t that the truth. Ironically that is also the police attitude to lawyers – the Police Association tends to have the best lawyers on a retainer. But that’s another story entirely.
March 12th, 2009 at 6:02 pm
David, how could you betray the cause thus? Surely this should read:
“Power dips into hard working kiwi families life’s savings to fund grasping lawyers’ defence of deadbeats and layabouts who ought to be locked-up for life. Sir Roger calculates the impost on mums and dads, famers and financiers as equivalent to four year’s earnings from blind trusts and offshore accounts. John Key’s soul further imperilled by creeping socialism – you can take the boy out of the state house…”
March 12th, 2009 at 6:16 pm
“Community law centres are a good investment – certainly result in corrections savings.”
Yeah really?
Personally I doubt it. Sounds like socialist legend to me. I say shut them down. They’re useless. Give the money back to the taxpayers.
If there’s a need for their services, then they should charge for them, not expect to take money from the pay packets of hard working hard pressed NZ families to keep them afloat.
March 12th, 2009 at 6:21 pm
“Give the money back to the taxpayers.”
Or back to the lawyers’ clients, perhaps?
March 12th, 2009 at 6:36 pm
RB:
“I say shut them down. They’re useless.”
Sounds like right winger legend to me … . But why should we let reality interfere with some good old ideological self-pleasuring?
March 12th, 2009 at 7:22 pm
Community law centres are pathetic and just part of the bullshit judiciary gravy train. When are lawyers going to understand they are just part of the socialist machine? No wonder society is stuffed.
March 12th, 2009 at 8:12 pm
Your a ‘bot aren’t you Dad; half a dozen phrases, a dozen or more expletives and there you have it!
March 12th, 2009 at 8:18 pm
FE Smith & GPT1
Sorry for the delay in my reply chaps but I have been busy attending my weekly “bash the fuck out of any passing lawyer class”, you should give it a crack, it is most therapeutic.
Now, lets get to your comments; first of all I refuse to join you wallowing in self pity for the “bollocks attacks” your profession is often on the receiving end of, as one who has been in a profession that rates even lower on the list of “least trusted” professions I would suggest the little bit of gip you chaps attract is nothing in comparison to the weekly and often daily shit we have to deal with, often the most vicious attacks come from the closeted and secret handshake world of the legal profession, in short….harden the fuck up.
“Go show your ignorance to someone else. Like GPT1 said, the law centres operate because employed lawyers are prepared to accept low wages and because other lawyers are willing to volunteer their time on a regular basis. In my area, we have a dozen or so rostered on each week to provide free legal advice, rather than representation. Without the lawyers willing to give of their own free time the centre could not operate.”
So you guys do a bit of charity work, does that make you unique?, I think not, there are thousands of us who volunteer to make other peoples life better, indeed most of us do it for NO BLOODY wages, that is the choice we make, personally the volunteer work I undertake costs me a small bloody fortune, I do not moan about it nor do I think I am above others in society because I happen to give a bit of my time away, I just get on and do the fucking job.
“we don’t have free clinics run by doctors who receive no money for their time (when they charge and earn far more than the lawyers)”
Spoken to a GP lately have you?, one of my very best mates is a GP, the bugger may as well be operating a free clinic for all the bludgers who use his services and do not (and have no intention of) paying him, as it happens he also visits the local retirement homes in his own time and does most of that work for FREE, to say nothing of the midnight call outs he gets when the local ambulance drivers do not think the patients they have on board from the latest road smash will make it to the nearest hospital without his expert assistance.
As for the accountants, well you got me with that one, those bastards as as bad as you lot in my book.
The point is Mr Smith, that many of us and many professions give of their time, they do it because they want to do it, the legal profession seems to have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the voluntary sector and when they do show up they seem to want their not inconsiderable backsides kissed for doing so.
The other point is this, if you do not want to volunteer then don’t bloody do so, nobody is making you and for those who wish they can always charge their not inconsiderable fee back to the tax payer.
As GD said, the ones who are really being fucked over in all of this are the middle class, once again they receive nothing yet seem to be the group that a lot of professions and the bloody gummint treat as a cash cow, the reality is that the outrageous charges the legal profession heap upon the middle class is what allows a lot of you to undertake the charity work you so “generously” undertake, perhaps if you did not charge like the proverbial bull you would not encounter resistance to legal aid and the tax payer bailout of community law centres.
March 12th, 2009 at 8:52 pm
Goodness, BB. I have to wonder exactly what a lawyer did to you to make you so pissy…
The point is pretty simple, but I’ll spell it out anyway. The legal profession has developed into an industry that prices many ordinary Kiwis out of being able to access justice. (Welcome to the market place … you get what you can pay for.) The community law centers act as a backstop way of granting some (minimal) legal advice to folks who otherwise could not afford that advice. These centers partially rely on lawyers volunteering their time (as a part of a longstanding ethic of “pro bono” involvement on the part of the profession). But they also rely on paid staff. Given the fall off in revenue for these centers (due to the plunging property transfer market), they would be forced to lay off those staff, thus cutting their ability to provide a service. The government has stumped up taxpayer cash to make up that shortfall. This is a good thing.
Now go have some hot milk and a nice sleep.
March 12th, 2009 at 9:03 pm
“The government has stumped up taxpayer cash to make up that shortfall. This is a good thing.”
No it is bloody not, look, I have no beef with lawyers, hell if they can get away with charging as much as they do then good on them however it is not the place of the tax payer to be funding any more of the extravagances of that profession.
If community law centrers are so vital then let the lawyers pay for them, other charities will go to the wall during the recession and while that is not a good thing it is a fact of life.
March 12th, 2009 at 9:11 pm
BB:
“it is not the place of the tax payer to be funding any more of the extravagances of that profession.”
True. But so irrelevant as to make me wonder if you know what you are talking about.
“If community law centrers are so vital then let the lawyers pay for them”
And this simply confirms it.
March 12th, 2009 at 9:12 pm
AG
Not that you have a vested interest of course?
March 12th, 2009 at 10:46 pm
“first of all I refuse to join you wallowing in self pity for the “bollocks attacks” your profession is often on the receiving end of”
I will happily defend my profession, all the while understanding that it is not and never will be perfect. However I will also happily respect any person who defends their profession/vocation/occupation group. In no way am I wallowing in self-pity because I defend my profession. Within the profession I am also a critic of things that hold us back. Again, it is in no way self-pity.
“as one who has been in a profession that rates even lower on the list of “least trusted” professions”
oh well, you can defend or attack it as you please, nothing to do with me. If you want to defend your (I presume former) profession (can’t think what rates lower- real estate agents? used car salesman?) then be my guest.
“So you guys do a bit of charity work, does that make you unique?, I think not,”
Never said it did, but then you were attacking the legal profession specifically, weren’t you. So the subject was simply the legal profession. The difference here is that Legal Aid (and you attacked lawyers who accept work on legal aid) is poorly paid and is routinely attacked by politicians, media and the public. You then said that those who accept legal aid work should pay for the Community Law Centres. Not the legal profession in general, just those who accept legal aid.
Community Law Centres are non-profit organisations that are incorporated and have specific governance structures, employees and goals that are promoted by the Government to assist those who are unable to afford legal advice. It is not individual lawyers giving out a bit of free advice at the Citizens Advice Beaurau (which we also do for free) or conducting tours around the Courts, or just giving a bit of free advice to those who come to see us. They often have budgets in the hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. This is not about “thousands of us who volunteer to make other peoples life better”, this is about the law profession giving up its time to assist the GOVERNMENT in meeting its stated goals. Thousands of lawyers also give up their time to other things, just like you, and I am sure that for some it also costs them a ’small fortune’. Boo hoo. But the Community Law Centres are helping society/government meet its goals, so it is in a different category altogether.
“Spoken to a GP lately have you?, one of my very best mates is a GP, the bugger may as well be operating a free clinic for all the bludgers who use his services and do not (and have no intention of) paying him”
Don’t start me on this one. That GP friend of yours gets paid by the government for each person he sees. It is called a subsidy. Legal Aid is not a subsidy. Your GP friend can charge a top-up fee if he thinks the subsidy is insufficient. Legal Aid lawyers cannot. Very simply, I do not believe that the majority of his clients do not pay him, nor do I believe that he does not receive money for the people he sees.
However, if he really is running a mostly free clinic that costs the government nothing then good on him! Good bloke, obviously.
“to say nothing of the midnight call outs he gets when the local ambulance drivers do not think the patients they have on board from the latest road smash will make it to the nearest hospital without his expert assistance.”
hmm, just like out Police Detention Legal Aid Scheme, where we are on call all night, every night (if we so choose) to be called down to the Police Station to assist someone. Ok, we get $30 or so for that, but hey, what is that at 4am? I suspect your GP friend also gets paid for his time as well…
“many of us and many professions give of their time”
So let’s get back to the point here- where are the GP’s setting up free health clinics so that people who cannot afford a doctor (and there are plenty of those, if the social services people are to be believed) can go and get free medical advice? Eh? That is the sort of scheme we are talking about here. I applaud your GP friend for going into rest homes, that is wonderful. But it is not part of a set of goals held by the government to promote access to healthcare!!!! Community Law Centre’s provide just that in the legal field.
” the reality is that the outrageous charges the legal profession heap upon the middle class is what allows a lot of you to undertake the charity work you so “generously” undertake,”
Again, that is totally wrong. If you had read my earlier posts properly you would have noticed my point about many of the volunteers being barristers who do legal aid. Which means we aren’t a part of any group heaping outrageous charges on the middle class. Which, by the way, is wrong as well: we charge the same rates whether you are lower class, working class, middle class, middle-upper class, upper class or any other class you may care to name. So, if you want to engage me to represent you then you have a choice- pay my private rate or make an application for legal aid. If you don’t get legal aid then you need to pay my private rate. Simple.
But those fees do not pay for the charity. That is on my own time and outside of work hours, although legal aid work should be considered charity work. Again, however, the firms charge the fees. It is individuals who make the effort to be charitable.
“If community law centrers are so vital”
Well now, it is not the legal profession that says they are vital, it is the government and the social service groups that say this.
“then let the lawyers pay for them”
You still haven’t answered the question properly: why the hell should we?
AG at 8.52 and 9.11 has it exactly right.
I think Community Law Centres are a good thing and as part of the legal profession I do, and have done, my bit for them.
What I want to know is why nobody seems to mind the banks taking half of the money from solicitor’s trust accounts to administer a scheme that pays for Community Law Centres. We are talking about millions of dollars a year of profit for the banks to do very little, yet they get the same amount as the law centres, who do a great deal.
All we get is BB being a dick.
March 13th, 2009 at 8:26 am
Hey, even some Libertarians (possibly NotPC) indicate that they’d be allright using taxes to provide legal aid and the like – without money, no justice, sooo…
March 16th, 2009 at 6:59 pm
FE, GPT & co
Can you run that bit about lawyers on legal aid being poorly paid past me again please?
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10561992
March 16th, 2009 at 7:06 pm
big bruv, lawyers are consummate liars who make splendid judges.