Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006

Miscellaneous provisions - Transitional provisions in respect of complaints and disciplinary proceedings

355: Exercise by Legal Complaints Review Officer of role of Lay Observer

You could also call this:

"Legal Complaints Review Officer takes over Lay Observer's job if a complaint takes too long"

Illustration for Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006

You have proceedings that are not finished after 6 months. The Legal Complaints Review Officer takes over the Lay Observer's role. They get the duties and powers a Lay Observer had under the Law Practitioners Act 1982. You need to consider some rules from the Law Practitioners Act 1982. These rules are about sections 97(5), 97(6), 97(9), and 97A. In these rules, 'District Law Society' is replaced with 'complaints service established under section 121(1) of the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006 by the New Zealand Law Society'. The Legal Complaints Review Officer has these duties and powers. This happens when the Lay Observer's term ends or they leave office. It also happens when the 6-month period ends.

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View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM367858.

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354: Continuation of Lay Observers, or

"Lay Observers keep their jobs for 6 months after the law changes."

356: Exercise by Lawyers Standards Committee of role of complaints committee, or

"Lawyers Standards Committee handles unfinished complaints"

Part 11Miscellaneous provisions
Transitional provisions in respect of complaints and disciplinary proceedings

355Exercise by Legal Complaints Review Officer of role of Lay Observer

If any proceedings to which section 353 applies have not been determined by the close of the period of 6 months beginning with the date of the commencement of this section or cannot be determined before the end of that period because a Lay Observer continued in office by section 354 has, before the end of that period, vacated office, then, from the end of that period or from any earlier date on which the Lay Observer vacates office, the Legal Complaints Review Officer has, despite the repeals effected by this Act, the duties and powers that a Lay Observer would have, under the Law Practitioners Act 1982, in relation to those proceedings if that Act had not been repealed.
Despite subsection (1), sections 97(5), 97(6), 97(9), and 97A of the Law Practitioners Act 1982 are to have effect, for the purposes of that subsection, as if, for the words District Law Society wherever they occur, there were substituted in each case the words complaints service established under section 121(1) of the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006 by the New Zealand Law Society.