Someone who wanted to eat a sandwich. The other wanted a meeting room. This discussion went all the way to the Legal Complaint Review Officer in NZ.
New Zealand’s Legal Complaint Review Officer (LCRO) Fraser Goldsmith had to rule the spat between two criminal attorneys on whether the sandwich should be eaten in the interview room.
He had to reach a decision after the previous findings of the local Legal Standards Board were rejected.
Neither lawyer has been appointed in the discovery, but they are called the applicant (the lawyer who had the sandwich) and the defendant (the lawyer who wanted to use the room he had eaten it).
The saga began when both lawyers were scheduled to represent clients on the district court list on the same day. The court building features a lawyer’s room and three client interview rooms.
During the 15-minute court break, the applicant entered an empty interview room to eat a sandwich, “as a self-control measure for his diabetes condition.”
The respondent was a mission counsel and entered the room because he wanted to have a secret discussion with his client. The applicant did not want to leave.
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As Goldsmith puts it, “words have been exchanged.”
Conflict claims
That those words were significantly different between the evidence of the two lawyers.
The applicant claimed that the mission lawyer “squealed into a room… like the wildlife was released… yelled, ‘Go out, go out!'” and he was eating a sandwich gently.
Meanwhile, the respondent politely asked whether the room could be used for client discussion and whether the applicant could eat his sandwich outside, but he said he refused to leave until the meal was finished.
She claimed he asked twice more to leave, saying that the consumption of the sandwich was not intended to be used by the interview room. He is said to have rejected twice, saying, “Young woman, you need to learn manners.”
The mission lawyer said, “At this point I advised that I could leave as I was left without courtesy. He was able to leave in the end, but I never complained about leaving and how I lacked etiquette before my client.”
Not satisfied with the responsibilities, he continued to file formal complaints.
He alleged that she failed to maintain occupational standards, treating her with respect and courtesy, respectfulness, and engaging in conduct that, along with other violations of the Attorneys and Carriers Act, tended to disgrace the profession. These included “[failed]and unable to treat him as someone who is respectful and involved in the court process” and “acts that amount to one or more acts of bullying, discrimination, and racial harassment.” ”
The Standards Committee noted that with two very different explanations of what happened and the lack of third party evidence, he rushed to finish the sandwich and that it was up to the applicant to prove that the duties attorney had committed the violation he allegedly claimed.
He couldn’t do so, so “it was unnecessary or inappropriate to take away more complaints.”
Still, the parties were reminded of their “duty to treat fellow practitioners with respect and courtesy.”
However, the sandwich owner was not satisfied with it, complaining that “the committee had mistakenly concluded that it could not resolve the de facto dispute,” and that it “could not conduct a legitimate investigation” because it failed to exercise its authority to obtain evidence from others.
The police were not impressed
Goldsmith was clearly not impressed that the incident came before him.
“It’s a shame that this issue is in front of this office,” he wrote. “Two mature criminal advocates should be able to pick up the phone and resolve expert skits against suspects without involving lawyer complaints services or LCRO resources. But we are where we are.”
The law grants widespread powers to reviewers “to carry out their own investigations and seek and receive evidence, including all the powers of the Standards Committee or investigator.”
However, Goldsmith concluded that “there is no additional issues or questions… it requires further submission” as well as “the review can be properly determined in the absence of parties.”
He had no basis to determine that rules relating to professional conduct had been violated.
“The fact that both parties were lawyers and attended the court for the matters of their clients does not imply that the intersection of their paths corresponds to respondents who “treat the applicant” as (a) those involved in the court process,” he said.
“It appears that the applicant was involved in eating lunch.”
