According to the Lawyers and Conveyancers Disciplinary Tribunal decision, Cottrell’s immigration agency charged one of the men $15,000 to find him work as a civil engineer, while for 16 months he did labouring jobs on her behalf.
Her legal firm, Cottrell Law in Wellington, also charged him $20,000 to assist him in obtaining a skilled migrant visa.
When his visa ran out in April 2019, Cottrell stopped taking his calls when he phoned about the status of his application.
However, one of her employees got back to the man in January of the following year to tell him his visa had been declined and he’d been in the country illegally for almost nine months.
Cottrell was then convicted on two counts of aiding and abetting a person to breach their visa conditions by employing them in roles contrary to what they were granted entry to do.
She was also convicted of providing false information to immigration officials and was sentenced to four months of community detention in the Wellington District Court in 2022.
Judge Peter Hobbs said in his sentencing that immigration officers had found the two migrants painting a house in suburban Wellington.
“Income generated by the victims was a large part of your company’s income during the 16 months the victims were employed by you,” Judge Hobbs said.
“There was an obvious breach of trust; you were working as a lawyer and had a duty to these victims.”
Hobbs dismissed claims from Cottrell’s lawyer that she was just trying to help the victims.
“That, in my view, seems to be a somewhat convenient excuse, particularly bearing in mind the period of time over which this offending occurred and the fact that they worked for that time in your own business,” Judge Hobbs said.
Following her conviction and two complaints from her former clients to the New Zealand Law Society, she was charged with misconduct before the Lawyers and Conveyancers Disciplinary Tribunal in August this year.
Cottrell didn’t show up to that hearing but her former clients did.
“She was very dominating,” one of the men who ended up working as a painter told the tribunal.
“She’s my lawyer and she knows how to deal with immigration and I trusted her.”
The man, whose name was suppressed by the tribunal, said that for seven years from 2016, he could not visit home because of his precarious visa situation.
“If I went back I wouldn’t have been able to return,” he said. “In that time I wasn’t able to even get access to a doctor.”
The decision said a third person had employed Cottrell to help fight her husband’s deportation order. After he was sent back to India the woman had stayed to file a joint residency application with Cottrell’s help.
She told the tribunal that she signed a blank visa application and was told by Cottrell that she’d do the rest.
“At that point in time I had little knowledge of how to deal with immigration,” the woman, whose name was also suppressed, said.
“I literally did what she said.”
The residency application was filed in November 2017 and declined two weeks later. However, Cottrell didn’t tell her clients for nearly two years.
This week, the tribunal struck Cottrell from the roll of barristers and solicitors, meaning she can no longer practise as a lawyer.
“There is no place in the legal profession for lawyers who act dishonestly and then abandon their responsibilities to their profession,” the ruling stated.
The tribunal found that her conduct was both disgraceful and dishonourable.
“Firstly, it is apparent that Ms Cottrell profited from a vulnerable immigrant’s position by having him engaged either by her own company or the company of a close friend at a minimal rate which did not reflect his skills,” the ruling stated.
The tribunal found that Cottrell had lied to Immigration New Zealand about the nature of one of the men’s employment and that she encouraged him to take cash payments for his labour.
“There was clearly the opportunity for property businesses to profit from the labour of her vulnerable client who was referred to the job by her,” the tribunal found.
It also found that Cottrell didn’t advise her client of his declined visa application and essentially sought to “cover up” her mistake which meant he had no means to take steps to correct it.
“From the lengthy period over which these failings were concealed, we infer that these were deliberate breaches of the rules by Ms Cottrell and that lawyers of good standing would regard it as disgraceful or dishonourable conduct,” the tribunal found.
“Immigration officials should be able to trust and have confidence in lawyers and the accuracy of documentation from members of the profession. Her actions damaged that trust and have wider implications for the reputation of the profession.”
Cottrell was also ordered to pay $40,000 in legal costs.
Jeremy Wilkinson is an Open Justice reporter based in Manawatū covering courts and justice issues with an interest in tribunals. He has been a journalist for nearly a decade and has worked for NZME since 2022.
