The remuneration rate have not increased significantly in almost 25 years
The Legal Aid Services Commissioner Tracey Baguley has announced that duty lawyers in New Zealand will be seeing a 17% pay rise.
Baguley expressed her hope that the boost would “encourage lawyers to continue providing the duty lawyer service, helping to ensure unrepresented defendants can continue to access legal assistance in this way”.
According to the New Zealand Law Society | Te Kāhui Ture o Aotearoa, the remuneration rate for duty lawyers has not increased significantly in almost 25 years.
“Ensuring duty lawyers receive adequate remuneration for the work that they do is critical to valuing the role duty lawyers and the duty lawyer scheme plays within our criminal justice system”, Law Society President Frazer Barton said.
Last April, Barton brought the organisation’s concern regarding the unsustainability of duty lawyer work to the justice minister – a unsustainability which could deal a major blow to the criminal justice system.
“Inadequate remuneration coupled with growing shortages among duty lawyers has led to significant difficulties in attracting and retaining providers. We are hopeful that this increase in remuneration goes some way to addressing these concerns by recognising the importance of this role”, Barton said.
Baguley indicated that a broad-scope review of the duty lawyer scheme would be conducted from August of this year to February 2024 by a professional services firm with support from an advisory group of stakeholders of the duty lawyer service.
“[The] objective of the review will be to ensure the duty lawyer service is fit for purpose in meeting the needs of unrepresented defendants in the district court”, she said.
Barton commented that such a review was “long overdue”.
“The Law Society looks forward to playing a pivotal role in the review. We also have work underway to understand the current costs of practice for lawyers in Aotearoa New Zealand. Information from this project will assist us in continuing our evidence-based advocacy for the benefit of all legal aid providers and the wider profession”, he said.
