Law firm flourishes from days of goldfield imposters

Bryan Cecil Haggitt hung up his real lawyer’s shingle in Dunedin’s Manse St in 1862, amidst a crackdown to rid the booming Otago goldfields of imposter lawyers.

The Haggitt name has featured throughout the south’s illustrious legal history and BC Haggitt is credited with being the founder of Dunedin-based Anderson Lloyd Lawyers, now the South Island’s biggest law firm and celebrating its 150th anniversary.

At the time Mr Haggitt arrived in Dunedin to set up in a rented office in Victoria Chambers, the town was prospering but the legal system was still in its formative years.

Many imposter lawyers plagued the goldfields and in a move to improve standards, the first Law Practitioners Act had just come into force.

BC Haggitt was elected to the Otago Provincial Council and was provincial solicitor almost continuously. He became first vice-president of the Otago district law society in 1879.

Back in the 1890s the single most significant technological innovation for law firms was the typewriter. Before this clerks wrote out documents by hand using light from bare gas jets or candles.

The firm still did most of its work by hand until around 1910.

Numerous mergers, amalgamations and buyouts over 150 years saw Anderson Lloyd emerge as a leading southern law firm.

Name changes went from Haggitt & Haggitt; Haggitt Bros; Haggitt Brent & Williams; Spencer Brent & Son; Statham Brent & Anderson; Brent Anderson & Stewart; Brent Anderson Lloyd & Johnston; Brent Anderson Lloyd & Wilkinson; Anderson Lloyd Jeavons & Wilkinson; Anderson Lloyd Sim & McElrea until it became Anderson Lloyd Lawyers by 1990.

A brief timeline of the firm’s history credits Peter Anderson, who joined in 1920 and remained a partner for 59 years, with being the founding father of the modern firm.

In 1926 partner Charles Statham was knighted for his service as the first New Zealand-born Speaker of the House.

Ted Lloyd, who worked as a law clerk before becoming a partner in 1963, introduced the Lloyd name.

One of the leading lights of the Otago bar – Alf Jeavons – came into the partnership in 1970.

When Jim Guthrie joined the partnership in 1974 he became an influential figure in the firm’s expansion, particularly in the relatively new field of resource management law.

New ground in “lawyer branding” was broken in 1975 when Anderson Lloyd Jeavons & Wilkinson began using logos and colour in its letterheads.

Walter Rutherford took charge of the Queenstown office in 1982 and began to expand the business to meet the needs of the growing commercial and tourist centre.

By the time the Resource Management Act was passed in 1991, the firm was well placed to developing a national standing doing large-scale resource management work.

A Christchurch office was opened in 1998, and now supports four partners and 30 staff.

There were further mergers in 2000 with Calvert & Co and in 2001 with well-established Dunedin firm Caudwells.  Warwick Deuchrass and Frazer Barton from Caudwells remain as Anderson Lloyd partners today.

When the February 2011 earthquake hit Christchurch Anderson Lloyd staff were trapped in the Clarendon Tower high-rise office for two and a half hours.

As chief executive Richard Greenaway puts it, the firm has grown and adapted to historical events such as the Otago gold rush, women’s suffrage, two world wars, Think Big, Rogernomics, the 1999 Queenstown flood and the catastrophe of the Christchurch earthquakes.

The firm – which has had a strong presence particularly in the development of Queenstown since 1978 – specialises in commercial and corporate law, resource management and urban development litigation, family and personal law and rural business.

Spread over offices in Dunedin, Christchurch, Queenstown and Nelson it boasts 14 partner owners, six partners, 12 associates and 17 solicitors, as well as a range of consultants.

And before we forget, thank you for the birthday chocolate cake…

janderson@nbr.co.nz