KEY POINTS:
Lawyers are being asked to dip into their own pockets to bail out community law centres.
The 27 law centres face a $5.5 million shortfall and may be forced to cut hours, lay off staff and start charging clients.
Legal Services Agency (LSA) chairwoman Carole Durbin yesterday suggested "the private profession has a role to play" in addressing it.
"It could be as simple as requiring funding for the current crisis from
out of the Law Society. Not that it would be popular with lawyers," Ms Durbin said.
The LSA manages the funding of community law centres. The cash crisis has been caused by the downturn in the housing market, which finances the centres through the interest on house settlement money in lawyers' trust accounts.
Ms Durbin, a lawyer who consults at Simpson Grierson and the chairwoman of Mighty River Power, said she had raised the role of lawyers in helping to cover the shortfall with Justice Minister Simon Power.
She said a longer-term role for the profession could be requiring all firms who do work for the Government to do some pro-bono work, such as for community law centres, as is done in the Australian state of Victoria.
New Zealand Law Society president John Marshall, QC, said it was the state's responsibility to ensure people had access to justice, and that the Law Society did not actually have the power to levy lawyers to fund the centres.
Mr Marshall said lawyers started the centres, worked at them voluntarily and in some areas made an annual contribution to their running costs.
He said lawyers already contributed significantly through the house settlement fund, and just because that was declining "that is not a reason to look to lawyers for more funding".
Mr Power has agreed to meet representatives of the law centres next week.
