Lawyers squabble over $20 million golden goose

Auckland lawyers are under pressure to surrender $20 million of assets – for nothing.

A bitter stoush between pro-independence members of the well-endowed Auckland District Law Society Inc (ADLS Inc) and its pro-amalgamation New Zealand Law Society (NZLS) poor cousin is set to erupt.

The clash for industry dominance has driven a wedge into legal politics and turned the usually staid and unremarkable election of ADLS Inc president, currently underway, into a hot conflict spiced by allegations of threats, partisan election tactics and censorship.

Pro-independence supporter Nola Dangen took issue with NZLS president Jonathan Temm’s enthusiasm to takeover ADLS Inc, and his recent suggestion in NZLS magazine LawTalk that if ADLS Inc did not capitulate, it would face the full force of NZLS’s competition from 2011.

In a circular email to members, Ms Dangen, who is not a candidate, said the operations of ADLS Inc were best kept in the hands of Auckland and Northland lawyers and accused Mr Temm of sounding “rather threatening and unprofessional.”

ADLS Inc president Anna Fitzgibbon has staked her presidential re-election hopes on leading a move from within to push commercially-driven Auckland into bed with the national regulatory body.

Ms Fitzgibbon, running for a third presidential term, has moved away from her original pro-independence position and is now openly encouraging her members to support amalgamation with the Wellington-based asset-skint NZLS.

She told National Business Review ADLS Inc was on the verge of asking members to vote on a “coming together” between ADLS Inc and NZLS, as originally contemplated in a so-called one society plan touted in the lead-up to legislative reform of the profession in early 2009.

If Ms Fitzgibbon gets her way ADLS Inc risks giving up its freehold central Auckland building, valued at about $14 million, other investments including intellectual property estimated to be worth $6 million, a healthy annual profit and will lose its independence.

ADLS Inc – which has about 3500 members, about a third of all New Zealand lawyers - has already reported a part-year profit of about $350,000 and is said to be on track to make it $500,000 for the full year.

Auckland and Northland lawyers voted overwhelmingly in 2008 to form the Auckland district law society into an independent incorporated body in order to secure ownership of its healthy assets and keep them out of the hands of the NZLS.

Pro-independence camp presidential contender Frank Godinet wants to keep ADLS Inc independent, with its assets safely held in Auckland and to build on Auckland’s commercial and intellectual agility.

He does not want ADLS Inc’s unique history and culture lightly dismissed.

Wild-carder Jennie Vickers reckoned it was premature to be deciding ADLS Inc future and proposed ADLS Inc should develop a national advocacy and support scheme for all lawyers.

ADLS Inc bosses last week banned letters on the issue from their weekly magazine LawNews following a letter from former executive director and pro-independence supporter Margaret Malcolm, who urged lawyers to get behind the independence movement.