The ILANZ committee has been working for many years to widen the ambit for in-house lawyers to provide legal services to entities with various degrees of relationship with their employer.
Changes to rule 15.2 of the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act (Lawyers: Conduct and Client Care) Rules 2008 came into effect on 1 July 2016. From that date, in-house lawyers are able to provide regulated services to a wider range of entities than they could previously where those entities are related to their employing organisation.
The regulatory division of the NZLS is providing information and resources to in-house lawyers to understand the changes and to operate in the new environment on the NZLS website. ILANZ is also working on guidance and training material to help members and their employers understand the new rules and the opportunities and challenges that they present. The changes do require an in-house lawyer providing regulated services to a non-employing entity, to provide that entity with client care information required by rules 3.4 and 3.5 of the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act (Lawyers: Conduct and Client Care) Rules 2008. NZLS has provide a suggested template for these terms of engagement. Although not a requirement, ILANZ encourages in-house lawyers to have both their employer and the non-employer recipient of regulated services to agree in writing to the terms of the engagement.
Details of the requirements and conditions which apply from 1 July are summarised as follows:
For more information about the Shared Services rule or if you have any queries, please contact [email protected].
The ILANZ committee extends its grateful thanks and appreciation to all members who have given their time and effort to advance these amendments over many years.