Financial incentive in guilty pleas

Lawyers can earn more than five times as much if they get clients to plead guilty at their first court appearance under new legal aid rules, a prominent lawyer says.

Auckland barrister Lapa Laubscher argues that the fee structure creates a potential conflict of interest for lawyers, and something needs to change so that the public can be confident that the system is fair.

Mr Laubscher, former head of the New Zealand Law Society, said he had worked out that under the new legal aid fixed-fee system, introduced earlier this year, it was 531 per cent more lucrative for lawyers if their client pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity.

When a defendant pleaded not guilty at their first appearance, their lawyer would effectively earn $300 an hour, but if they pleaded not guilty and the matter was decided at a defended hearing, the lawyer would earn only $56.47 an hour, Mr Laubscher said. ‘‘That must be an incentive.’’ He said he would expect and hope that lawyers would not try to rort the system by trying to get their clients to plead guilty early. ‘‘But I believe that to put that temptation there is not good. There might be a subconscious tendency not to be totally independent in the advice you give to your clients.’’

The situation applied for most legal aid work, he said.

Mr Laubscher understood that the Government was trying to find savings in tough economic times. However, ‘‘if we say in this country that we want to give access to justice for all, there is, unfortunately, a price to be paid’’.

Ministry of Justice director of legal aid services Michele McCreadie said lawyers had a responsibility to act in their clients’ best interests.