Sasha Borissenko: 'Journalism is the court of last resort'

Sasha Borissenko questions whether we have law-saga fatigue. Photo / Getty Images

OPINION:

A keyboard warrior with the Twitter handle @Arch_Law hit a nerve this week. Or perhaps it could have been the early morning shock that I faced when I put my weight on one end of a breakfast tray while the top of it faced down on my bed. I could never have expected the rules of gravity would lead to the other end smacking me on the nose.

Literally bleeding over my Muji bed linen (sob) - I opened my computer screen to read a response to last week's reporting of Morrison Kent's refusal to make public the findings of an independent review into the firm's culture. As an aside, yes, I work from my bed. Yes, I'm disgusting. And yes, I need to find "balance" via some form of culturally appropriated foreign practice.

Nonetheless, @Arch_Law (with a profile picture featuring Jay Jay Feeney adorning a dubious brown-coloured facemask, I must add) questioned why Morrison Kent should release the findings. The anonymous troll went on to say: "U [sic] drumming [sic] up clicks by ruining some lives and careers over your 'reporting' of these minor workplace disputes.

"On the bright side at least I'm taking an interest (not enough to get paywall access mind), unlike the rest of NZ, who think the gripes of well-paid lawyers about workplace conditions is good for a giggle but no more."

Firstly, I seldom read comments, well, comments-in-theory as you'd be surprised by the little amount of feedback I receive. Then there's the hilarious fact that said representative of the nation hadn't actually read the article, like most offensive people who hide behind their computers and spout harmful opinions without fear of consequence.

It could have been the possible concussion, but it did make me wonder. Have we reached a point of law-saga fatigue? What is the meaning of life? Am I alive? Am I a ghost? It also made me question whether a Law Society statement released on its website last Thursday was in fact news.

Perhaps the shortest statement ever to exist on a single landing page, the Board of the New Zealand Law Society advised that President Jacque Lethbridge had taken a leave of absence. "Ms Lethbridge informed the Board and Council on Friday 12 August that she will take a leave of absence for the duration of the Culture Review, effective from Monday 15 August," says David Campbell, vice-president of the Law Society," it read.

Let's take stock of the changes to the legal industry over the last few years:

The investigation into Russell McVeagh landed in February 2018, two years after James Gardner-Hopkins inappropriately touched five interns. The Law Society learned of the events in October 2016. An own motion was conducted after the investigation made the news.

In March 2018, the Criminal Bar Association released a survey showing 82 per cent of respondents had experienced or witnessed harassment or bullying behaviour. More than a quarter of respondents reported unwelcome sexual attention.

The Law Society released a survey in June 2018 finding nearly a third of female lawyers had been sexually harassed during their working life. Only 12 per cent of people had made complaints, and of those only 7 per cent had reported it to the Law Society.

Dame Margaret Bazley released findings to an independent review into Russell McVeagh in July 2018. In December, Dame Silvia Cartwright released a report from the working group on what improvements could be made around better reporting of harassment.

Fast forward two years to March last year where the Law Society announced an independent review of the statutory framework for legal services to examine the regulation and representation of legal services.

Three months later Gardner-Hopkins appeared before a Lawyers & Conveyancers Disciplinary Tribunal in June. He was found guilty of six misconduct charges in July.

That same month new rules governing the behaviour of lawyers, including new reporting requirements, came into force via the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act (Lawyers: Conduct and Client Care) Rules 2008.

Gardner-Hopkins appeared before a penalty hearing in December last year. The Lawyers & Conveyancers Disciplinary Tribunal suspended Gardner-Hopkins from practising law for two years in January this year.

In March, professor Ron Paterson, Jane Meares, and Jacinta Ruru were appointed as members of the Law Society's independent review panel. A discussion document was released in June, calling on the profession to engage in the process.

The High Court dismissed a cross appeal made by Gardner-Hopkins in July, instead increasing his two-year suspension to three years.

That same month the Law Society confirmed the launch of a different review - this time into its internal culture following concerns raised in June about president Jacque Lethbridge's behaviour. Lethbridge denied the unspecified allegations.

Meanwhile, the Employment Relations (Extended Time for Personal Grievance for Sexual Harassment) Amendment Bill is at select committee stage, after passing its first reading in May.

Introduced in October last year, the bill aims to extend the time available to raise a personal grievance that involves allegations of sexual harassment from 90 days to 12 months.

Where to from here? Issues or stories relating to vulnerable people in a work context may be "minor" according to mileage @Arch_Law but hell is just a sauna and such a notion undermines the experiences and impact of those who are often at the bottom of the food chain.

Journalism is the court of last resort and offers sometimes the only avenue for potential change. To think of a world without it is perhaps a world where I'd prefer to be a ghost.