Duty Lawyer Service — pay increase now, wider review to follow
The new pay rates are:
- $103 + GST per hour on weekdays (up from $88).
- $126 + GST per hour on weekends and public holidays (previously $108).
This follows the earlier announcement of a “duty lawyer minimum payment policy” from 3 April 2023 (a minimum payment of two hours on weekdays and four hours on weekends/public holidays).
The Duty Lawyer Service is one of three “specified legal services” under the Legal Services Act 2011 (which sit alongside the primary “legal aid” service). The object of the Duty Lawyer Service is “to ensure that there is available in each District Court a sufficient number of lawyers to assist, advise and represent unrepresented defendants charged with an offence”: see “Establishment of the Duty Lawyer Service as a Specified Legal Service” (23 June 2011) 86 New Zealand Gazette 2109.
The other specified legal services are the Police Detention Legal Assistance Service and the Family Legal Advice Service. All three services are discussed in Legal Services at [LA68.02] on Westlaw New Zealand.
Kevin Leary is a Senior Legal Editor in the New Zealand Analytical Law team at Thomson Reuters. He has more than 20 years' experience as an editor of bound books, looseleafs, precedents and their digital equivalents.