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New Zealand Legal Complaints Review Officer |
Last Updated: 6 March 2025
LEGAL COMPLAINTS REVIEW OFFICER
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Ref: LCRO 12/2025
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CONCERNING
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an application for review pursuant to section 193 of the Lawyers and
Conveyancers Act 2006
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AND
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CONCERNING
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a decision of the [Area] Standards Committee [X]
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BETWEEN
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AO
Applicant
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AND
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FA and CY
Respondent
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The names and identifying details of the parties in this decision have been changed.
DECISION
[1] Ms AO has applied to review a decision made by the [Area] Standards Committee [X] (the Committee) in which the Committee decided to take no further action in her complaint about the professional conduct of her former lawyers, Mr FA and Mr CY.1
1 Ms AO’s review application names several other applicants. It seems that those individuals were involved in litigation as parties with Ms AO, which litigation is at the heart of the complaints about Mr FA and Mr CY. The Committee treated the complaint as having been made by Ms AO. As well, Ms AO has been assisted by others (not parties to the litigation) with her review application – agents, if you like. Nevertheless, it remains Ms AO’s review application. For convenience in this decision, I will refer only to Ms AO. Acts conducted on her behalf by her agents I will refer to as having been carried out by Ms AO.
[2] The Committee's decision was based on s 138(2) of the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act (the Act), which empowers a Standards Committee to dismiss a complaint if it determines that further action is unnecessary or inappropriate.
[3] An issue has arisen as to whether this Office has jurisdiction to deal with Ms AO’s review application. The question is whether she has lodged it out of time.
Brief timeline
[4] The following is a brief timeline of events between 4.33 pm and 5.13 pm on 4 February 2025.
[5] Ms AO initiated an online review application through this Office's portal, accessible via the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) website, at approximately 4.33 pm on 4 February 2025.2
[6] This application process consists of sequential digital forms where applicants enter required information. They may, but are not required to, upload supporting documents in a recognisable file format (attachment).
[7] The attachment upload option appears near the final stages of the online form completion process.
[8] Payment of the filing fee constitutes the final step.
[9] Upon successful online payment of the filing fee, a window appears recording the date and time of the payment with an option for the applicant to print that out (the online receipt).
[10] The Office's case management system (CMS) then creates a date and time- stamped electronic file, and the review application is deemed to have been lodged. Nothing further is required from an applicant to complete the lodgement process.
[11] While completing the online review application form (online form), Ms AO attempted to upload an attachment but received an automated error message indicating that the attachment exceeded the system’s size limit.
2 There is some discrepancy about the time the review application lodgement process began. In an email to the Case Manager dated 4 February 2025 and timed 5:33 pm, Ms AO's agent Ms JN said that "We have been attempting to submit our files for the past hour in order to request a review of a Law Society decision...". This translates to Ms AO beginning the review application lodgement process at approximately 4:33 pm on 4 February 2025. In a subsequent email to the Case Manager dated 14 February 2025, Ms AO's agent Mr LX described "[trying] to upload around 4 pm onwards [on 4 February 2025]." I prefer the information contained in Ms JN's email, sent an hour after attempts began to lodge the review application, and will adopt 4:33 pm on 4 February 2025 as the relevant time and date.
[12] Unable to proceed further with the attachment, Ms AO completed the online form and successfully paid the filing fee. The online receipt generated for Ms AO records the transaction date and time as “04 Feb 2025 17:13 NZT”.3
[13] The CMS recorded the review application as having been lodged at 5.15 pm on 4 February 2025.
[14] For the purposes of this decision, I will treat 5.13 pm as the time when the CMS received the online review application and payment of the filing fee.
[15] Later in this decision I expand upon the above timeline.
The Law:
Lodging a review application in this jurisdiction
[16] Section 198 of the Act provides:
Applications for review
Every application for a review under section 193 must—
(a) be in a form approved by the chief executive of the Ministry of Justice after consultation with the Legal Complaints Review Officer; and
(b) be lodged with the Legal Complaints Review Officer within 30 working days after a copy or notice of the determination, requirement, or order made, or the direction given, or the performance or exercise of the function or power, by the Standards Committee (or by any person on its behalf or with its authority) is served on, given to, or otherwise brought to the attention of, the applicant for review (which, in the absence of proof to the contrary, is presumed to have occurred on the fifth working day after it is made, given, or performed or exercised); and
(c) be accompanied by the prescribed fee (if any).
[17] Essential requirements are:
- (a) Using a pre-approved review application form;
- (b) Paying the prescribed fee;
- (c) And doing both within 30 working days of receipt of the decision etc being reviewed.
[18] It is clear from the wording of s 198(b) of the Act that the 30-working day period runs from the day after the Committee’s decision etc is served on, given to or
3 See copy of Online Payments Receipt generated when Ms AO paid the filing fee.
otherwise brought to the attention of an applicant. This is to ensure that there is sufficient time for an application for review to be lodged.
[19] The second part of s 198(b) of the Act – the presumption of service – need only be addressed if it is not clear when the applicant was provided with a copy of the decision or otherwise had it drawn to their attention.
[20] In KX v WA, this Office held:4
- [9] For the avoidance of doubt, the statutory requirement is for a review application to be “lodged with the Legal Complaints Review Officer within 30 working days after the determination ...”, together with the fee. There can be no lodgement of documents after the closing time of the Registry, which is generally recognised to be between the normal working hours of 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. This is supported by AEL Group Ltd v Kensington Swan Lawyers, 31/7/08, Associate Judge Christiansen, HC Christchurch CIV-2008-409-1225. There the Court found that service on a law firm after 5:00 p.m. on a business day would not be effective (although in the circumstances considered by the Court service by facsimile prior to 5:00 p.m. was effective.) In this case the review application was lodged with this office the following day, when staff were in a position to receive and date stamp it, this being 19 April.
- [10] The provisions of s 198 of the Act are stated in mandatory terms and there is no statutory discretion to ameliorate their harshness. I accept this may be a harsh result and there may be reasons why an application was not made within the requisite time. However, the obligation to comply with the procedural requirements in making an application clearly lies with the Applicant. This position is reiterated by previous decisions of this Office that the LCRO has no discretion to extend the timeframe.
[21] This was confirmed by this Office in UQ v OI as follows:5
As a matter of jurisdiction this office has no discretion to accept review applications that are outside of the statutory time limit. Section 198 of the Act requires an application for Review to be lodged “within 30 working days after a copy or notice of the determination ...” is “served on, given to, or otherwise brought to the attention of, the applicant for review.”
[22] To emphasise: a Review Officer has no ability to extend the time limit for lodging an application for review. Legitimate argument may sometimes arise as to when the 30-working day count begins: either on the day after the decision etc is received/brought to an applicant’s attention, or five working days of the date of the decision.6
4 KX v WA LCRO 84/2012 (30 April 2012) at [9]–[10].
5 UQ v OI LCRO 19/2013 (2 April 2013) at [4].
6 For an example of a provision in an enactment empowering a judge to extend a time limit, see s 281(1)(a)(ii) of the Resource Management Act 1991. In short, in proceedings under that enactment a judge may waive the time within which an appeal may be lodged.
Meaning of “working day”
[23] Section 13 of the Legislation Act 2019 (LA) relevantly defines “working day” as follows:
“[W]orking day means a day of a week other than ... a day in the period commencing with 25 December in a year and ending with 2 January in the following year ....”
[24] The length of a working day is contextual, and must relate to the particular circumstances being considered.
[25] Guidance as to what this means for the business of New Zealand’s Courts and Tribunals can be found in both the High Court Rules 2016 (HCR) and the District Court Rules 2014 (DCR).
[26] Rule 5.1B HCR deals with when documents are filed with the High Court registry, as follows (where relevant):
5.1B When documents filed
(1) ...[D]espite any other provision of these rules or any other enactment or regulation to the contrary, a document—
- (a) delivered by hand to a registry of the court pursuant to rule 5.1A(2)(a) is filed on the day on which it is accepted for filing by the registry and at the time at which the registry receives it:
- (b) sent by mail to a postal address in accordance with rule 5.1A(2)(b) is filed when the registry receives it:
- (c) filed by sending it to an electronic address in accordance with rule 5.1A(2)(c)—
- (i) is filed when it is received by the relevant electronic communications or information management, retrieval, or storage system, provided the document is received by that system during registry hours; or
- (ii) at 9 am on the first day on which the relevant registry of the court is open after the document is received by the relevant electronic communications or information management, retrieval, or storage system.
[27] For High Court service and filing purposes, a “working day” begins at 9 am and ends at 5 pm. This is provided for in r 3.1 HCR, which reads:
3.1 Registry hours
The court’s registries must be open from 9 am to 5 pm on every day that is not a court holiday.
[28] Rule 5.1B DCR provides as follows:
(1) Subject to subclause (2), and despite any other provision of these rules or any other enactment to the contrary, a document—
- (a) delivered by hand to a registry of the court under rule 5.1A(2)(a) is filed on the day on which it is accepted for filing by the registry and at the time at which the registry receives it:
- (b) sent by mail to a postal address in accordance with rule 5.1A(2)(b) is filed when the registry receives it:
- (c) filed by sending it to an electronic address in accordance with rule 5.1A(2)(c) —
- (i) is filed when it is received by the relevant electronic communications or information management, retrieval, or storage system, provided the document is received by that system during registry hours; or
- (ii) is filed at 9 am on the first day on which the relevant registry of the court is open after the document is received by the relevant electronic communications or information management, retrieval, or storage system.
[29] Rule 2.4 of the District Court Rules 2014 (DCR) explicitly states:
2.4 Registry hours
(1) the court’s registries must be open from 9 am to 5 pm on every day that is not a court holiday.
[30] Both the District Court and the High Court have the same requirements as to when filing and service of documents is deemed to have taken place if that occurs after 5 pm on a working day.
[31] “Completion” for both High Court and District Court purposes occurs when the document is “received by the electronic communications or information management, retrieval, or storage system” (system) in the relevant registry during registry hours.
[32] If “completion” occurs after 5 pm on a working day, then it is deemed to have been filed at 9 am on the next working day.
This Office
[33] Schedule 3 of the Act, which deals with administrative issues affecting the Legal Complaints Review Officer, provides as follows:
5 Accommodation and services
(1) The Ministry of Justice is responsible for ensuring that the Legal Complaints Review Officer and each Deputy Legal Complaints Review Officer are provided with such accommodation and such administrative and secretarial services as are approved from time to time by the Minister of Justice.
[34] The “administrative and secretarial services” referred to in clause 5 above, include conventional court and tribunal facilities such as a registry or a process for lodging a review application or filing related documents.
[35] That being the case, and consistent with r 5.1B HCR and r 5.1B DCR, a “working day” for this Office begins at 9 am and ends at 5pm.
Notice of review rights
[36] The Committee’s decision, as with every decision or determination issued by a Standards Committee, concludes with the following information (relevant to this application for review):7
Right to apply for review – Legal Complaints Review Officer (“LCRO”)
You may be able to apply for a review of this determination by the LCRO. On review, the LCRO may:
(a) Direct the Standards Committee to reconsider the whole or any part of the complaint;
(b) Confirm, modify, or reverse the determination of the Standards Committee; and / or
(c) Exercise any of the powers the Standards Committee could have exercised in relation to this complaint.
Any application for a review of this determination must be lodged with the LCRO within 30 working days after a copy or notice is served on, given to, or otherwise brought to the attention of, the applicant for review. In the absence of proof to the contrary this is presumed to have occurred on the fifth working day after the date of this determination.
7 I observe that the reference in this information to the review application being in “the prescribed form”, is inconsistent with the wording of the section (s 198(a) – see [16] above). The section (amended on 29 October 2019, by section 119 of the Tribunals Powers and Procedures Legislation Act 2018) provides for a “form approved by the chief executive of the Ministry of Justice after consultation with the Legal Complaints Review Officer.”
An application for review must be on the prescribed form and be accompanied by the prescribed fee of $65.00. Contact details for the LCRO are as follows:
Postal address
Level 6
Auckland District Court 69 Albert Street
Auckland 1010
(Physical address; suitable for courier and hand delivery)
DX: EX 11086
Auckland 1010
(Postal address only; not suitable for courier delivery) Email: LCRO@justice.govt.nz
For further information about the LCRO and the review process, call 0800 367 6838 (extn 2) or go to:
https://www.justice.govt.nz/tribunals/lawyers-and-conveyancers/lcro/
[37] There is no dispute that the Complaints Service sent the Committee’s decision to Ms AO on 13 December 2024, by email.
[38] No issue has been taken with the manner (i.e. by email) in which the Committee’s decision was served on Ms AO. Email is a common, if not the most commonly used, mode of service in matters that come before the Complaints Service and this Office.
[39] This mode of communication is consistent with the provisions of the Contract and Commercial Law Act 2017, which at s 211(a) provides that “information is not denied legal effect solely because it ... is in electronic form or is in an electronic communication.”
[40] It is also consistent with the electronic filing provisions of r 5.1B HCR and r 5.1B DCR.
[41] Moreover, there are no legislative provisions relating to the operation of either the Complaints Service or this Office which preclude email as a means of lodging a review application or otherwise filing and serving documents.
[42] Therefore, in the present matter 30-working days after 13 December 2024 is 5 pm on 4 February 2025, allowing for those days which are excluded from the calculation by s 13 of the LA, which began on 25 December 2024 and ended on 2 January 2025.
Lodging a review application
[43] There are three options for lodging a review application in this jurisdiction.
[44] First, an applicant may physically deliver their review application and pay the prescribed filing fee at the registry of this Office in Auckland, or at any other Court registry in the country. If the latter, that registry will accept payment of the prescribed fee and forward the application to this Office, generally by email with the original material forwarded by conventional post.
[45] Secondly, an applicant may email a completed review application form to this Office, as an attachment to the email. They may also attach supporting documents to that email provided they do not exceed the size limit prescribed by the Office’s email server.
[46] Thirdly, an applicant may apply online, as discussed by me at [6]–[10] above.
[47] This Office’s portal on the MoJ website notes the following:
Any request to lodge a review must be completed before 5 pm on the 30th working day. This includes payment of the filing fee.
[48] An email attaching a review application sent at 5.01 pm on working-day 30 will be out of time. An online form uploaded with the paid filing fee at 5.01 pm on working- day 30 will also be out of time. It goes without saying that a personal visit to a court or this Office’s registry at 9 am on working-day 31 will also be out of time.
What happened here
[49] Ms AO opted to use the online filing procedure. That procedure is recorded in the online receipt as having been completed at 5.13 pm on Tuesday 4 February 2025; after the expiration of the 30 working-day period.
[50] Ms AO argues that she began the procedure before 5 pm but was thwarted by the system rejecting her application.
[51] I have pieced together the following relevant timeline. In doing so I have relied on relevant emails exchanged between Ms AO and the Case Manager from 23 January 2025.
- (a) On 23 January 2025 Ms AO forwarded the Case Manager a copy of the Committee’s decision and sought clarification of “the end date (30th business day) for review...”
4.33 pm (“attempting to [lodge the review application] for the past hour...”), and to the difficulties created by the size of the attachment. She also described the inability to “upload a link.” The following comment was also made:
[W]e previously encountered similar issues when submitting materials to the Law Society and ultimately had courier a bound folder.
(h) Ms AO sent a further email to the Case Manager at 10:34 pm advising that the attachment had been saved to the cloud storage application “Dropbox”, and that attempts to upload the attachment through the Office’s portal continued to be unsuccessful. Links to the Dropbox folder were embedded in the email.
(i) On 5 February 2025, the Case Manager emailed Ms AO indicating that her review application appeared to have been lodged out of time
8 See Ms AO's agent's email to the Case Manager dated 4 February 2025, sent at 5:33 pm.
(5:13 pm on 4 February 2025) and that there was no discretion for the time limit to be extended. Ms AO was advised that if she wished a Review Officer would consider the question of timeliness and make a “jurisdiction decision” about that. She was encouraged to provide reasons as to why the review application was unable to be lodged by 5 pm.
(j) On 11 February 2025 Ms AO replied to the Case Manager and said the following:
I am responding to your email saying that we filed 15 minutes out of the allocated time frame. This is ridiculous as we tried to get it filed on time but due to the amount of documentation and the inability to get the file is downloaded to your portal we were 15 minutes late. [My agent Ms JN] spent so much time attempting to get this filed on time but kept having problems. I hardly think that under the circumstances you should say we filed outside the timeframe allocated. ... I know that [my agent Ms JN] stayed till after 10 pm to get it reformatted to make it easier to access.
(k) Also on 11 February 2025, Ms AO emailed the Case Manager and said the following:
It was filed like four times prior to five pm but your website could not handle the downloads. Ms JN wrote by email seeking assistance.
In the end the Filing fee was paid to preserve our position online and documents filed on drop box and sent.
(l) On 12 February 2025 Ms AO emailed the Case Manager as follows:
The application currently under review is extensive and could not be uploaded through the online application portal due to file size limitations. As a result [my agent Ms JN] sent two additional emails – one to outline the issue and another containing the attachments via Dropbox. (Please let me know if I need to use and alternatives sharing file application). Given the constraints of the online portal, the minor 15 minute delays should not be taken into account.
(m) On 14 February 2025 the Case Manager responded to the earlier emails from Ms AO repeating what had been said in her earlier email (5 February 2025) and indicating that the issue would be put before a Review Officer “to consider the jurisdictional issue.” Further submissions from Ms AO were invited.
Discussion:
Ms AO’s submissions
[52] Ms AO’s submissions supporting her position were set out in her email to the Case Manager dated 18 February 2025.
[53] The essence of Ms AO’s submissions is that every effort was made to ensure that her review application was lodged, and the prescribed fee paid, by 5 pm on working day 30 (4 February 2025).
[54] Indeed, the online form had been filled in before 5 pm, but the payment not receipted for a further 20 minutes, at 5:13 pm.
[55] Prior to 5 pm she spent time reading information on (presumably the MoJ) website, but made sure to log back on to the Office’s portal before 5 pm so that payment could be made.
[56] A further 15 minutes was spent after 5 pm “to find another way to send the information” resulting in the 5:33 pm email to the Office.
[57] At 10:34 pm Dropbox links to the attachment were embedded in an email to the Office.
[58] Ms AO did not want to email the attachment to the Office because it included private medical files, financial information, legal advice and other sensitive information about the litigation at the heart of her complaint.
[59] Moreover, even if the entire process had been completed by her before 5 pm, the review application would not have been administratively dealt with until the following day; accordingly, there can be no prejudice if lodgement of the review application occurred after 5 pm.
[60] The Oxford Dictionary definition of “day” is a 24-hour period.
Analysis:
[61] I will deal Ms AO’s last point (a day is a 24-hour period), first.
[62] For the purposes of the business of the courts, it would be wrong to read into s 13 of the LA that a “working day” is deemed to end at midnight on that day. Adopting that approach would mean that a working day begins at one minute past midnight.
[63] If that was what the LA intended, it would simply have defined a working day as any 24-hour period excluding Saturday, Sunday and various other, generally recognised, public holidays.
[64] As observed by me, what amounts to a “working day” will be contextual. For the business of the courts that is 9 am – 5 pm, excluding the days referred in s 13 of the LA.
[65] Ms AO’s 18 February 2025 submissions say the following:
Our payment receipt was for the day in question [was] receipted about 20 minutes after the online forms were filled in (5:13 pm was the receipt dated 4th Feb 2025) your records will show that we were on the website prior to 5 pm while that payment was conducted.
We were also on the website prior to that trying to download information and log back on before 5 pm to simply get the payment through, then tried for a further 15 minutes to find another way to send the information and then emailed your office at 5:33 pm....
[66] This submission appears to say that before 5 pm Ms AO gave up trying to upload the attachment, completed filling out the online form and paid the filing fee but that it took 20 minutes for this Office to receipt that payment, by which time 5 pm had passed.
[67] In other words, a technical lapse of 20 minutes meant that her efforts were not acknowledged until 5:13 pm, which then became the deemed review lodgement time.
[68] I have difficulty with that submission for the following reasons.
[69] Ms AO had been informed directly by email by the Case Manager that a review application must be lodged by 5pm on working-day 30.9 The significance of this time cannot have escaped her.
[70] The online receipt generated for Ms AO clearly records the payment as having been successfully made at 5.13 pm.
[71] Prior to her February 18 submissions, Ms AO has never asserted that she completed the online form (excluding attachments) and paid the filing fee before 5pm, only to have the Ministry of Justice's system delay generating the online receipt until
5.13 pm.
[72] If the payment step had been completed by her before 5 pm, as her 18 February submissions seem to suggest, but a receipt not issued for another (say)
9 See Case Manager’s email to Ms AO (24 January 2025): “Any application must be lodged with the fee, prior to 5 pm on the final working day.”
15 minutes, I would have expected Ms AO to immediately raise concerns about a significant error in the online receipt which might have the effect of the review application being rejected.
[73] As noted by me Ms AO could have been in no doubt about the significance of 5 pm on 4 February 2025.
[74] However, Ms AO’s 5.33 pm email makes no reference to the online receipt or any alleged error with it.
[75] Next, the Case Manager’s email to Ms AO on 5 February 2025 explicitly noted that the online review application was received by this Office at 5.15 pm on 4 February.
[76] Again, if Ms AO believed that she had paid the filing fee before 5 pm, and that the online receipt was wrong, I would have expected her to say so when responding to the Case Manager’s email.
[77] There is, in fact, a great deal of uncertainty as to precisely what Ms AO did between her first failed attempt to upload the attachment at 4.33 pm, and 5 pm.
[78] The sense I have from the various accounts that have been given is that further unsuccessful attempts were made to upload the attachment or a pared down version of it, including an attempt to provide a Dropbox link to the online form.
[79] I am satisfied that these attempts persisted after 5 pm, when at approximately
5.13 pm a decision was made to abandon efforts to upload an attachment, and move straight to completion of the online review application form and payment of the filing fee.
[80] I am further satisfied that the step that Ms AO successfully took at 5.13 pm, was one that had been open to her following rejection of the attachment at approximately 4.33 pm.
[81] These failures have also been described by her as inadequacies in the Office’s review application lodgement processes. In other words, that process should be able to accommodate an attachment to an online form, no matter what its size.
[82] I do not accept that there is any fault or other inadequacy in the Office’s online review application processes.
[83] It is entirely conventional for agencies to have a size limitation for uploading a file to their system. The reasons include server storage capacity, bandwidth consumption and security concerns.
[84] It must be remembered that successful lodgement of a review application only requires three things: use of an approved form; payment of a filing fee and completion by 5 pm on working-day 30.
[85] An attachment to the approved form – whether that is online or by email – is not a necessary pre-requisite to successfully lodging a review application. It is an optional step available to an applicant.
[86] When an initial attempt to upload an attachment fails due to size limitations, an applicant should reasonably anticipate that subsequent attempts with the same file will also fail.
[87] This situation should prompt the applicant to first complete and lodge their review application successfully, then consult a Case Manager about alternative methods for providing the oversized attachment.
[88] The situation which confronted Ms AO was one over which she had complete control. The solution was to abandon any attempt to upload an attachment or electronic link to a file stored elsewhere, and to ensure that the online form was completed and the filing fee paid by 5 pm.
[89] Ms AO could easily have done so before 5 pm. In fact, she easily did so at
5.13 pm.
[90] In my view permitting a review application to proceed when submitted after the 5 pm deadline in circumstances such as these would create a precedent for accepting late applications due to applicant errors in the lodgement process.
Conclusion
[91] Under s 198 of the Act, the 30-working-day period commences on the day following the fifth working day after the decision date, unless evidence demonstrates that the applicant received, was served with, or became aware of the decision earlier.
[92] Importantly, this five-working-day presumption in s 198 is rebuttable. Where evidence establishes earlier service, delivery, or notification of the Standards Committee's decision, the 30-working-day period begins on the day following this earlier date of actual receipt or notification.
[93] In almost all cases that will be the date on which the decision was sent by email to the applicant, which is invariably the same date on which the Standards Committee issues its decision.
[94] For the purposes of s 198 of the Act, the Committee’s decision was served on Ms AO on 13 December 2024 (a Friday). This means that day one of the 30-working day calculation was Monday 16 December 2024.
[95] 30-working days expired at 5 pm on 4 February 2025 (allowing for, as earlier indicated, the non-working days beginning on 25 December 2024 and ending on 2 January 2025).
[96] Applying the above and this Office’s decision in KX v WA, I find that Ms AO had until 5 pm on 4 February 2025 to lodge her application for review including paying the prescribed fee.
[97] There is no provision in the Act for a Review Officer to extend the fixed time limit within which an application for review must be lodged. I accept that in some cases hardship may result in the strict application of the time limit prescribed by s 198 of the Act.
Outcome
[98] This Office has no jurisdiction to deal with the application for review that was lodged by Ms AO, as it was not lodged within 30 working days after the date on which the Committee’s decision was served on her.
Publication
[99] Pursuant to s 206(4) of the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006, I direct that this decision may be published but without any details that may directly or indirectly identify the parties, or any other person named in this decision.
DATED this 28TH day of February 2025
R Hesketh
Legal Complaints Review Officer
In accordance with s 213 of the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006 copies of this decision are to be provided to:
Ms AO as the Applicant Mr FA as a Respondent
Mr CY as a Respondent
[Area] Standards Committee [X] New Zealand Law Society
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