SOLICITORS' GUARANTEE.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 198, 23 August 1928, Page 9

SOLICITORS' GUARANTEE.

PROTECTION OF TRUST FUNDS LAW SOCIETY'S PROPOSAL. (By Telegraph.—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, Wednesday. The Law Practitioners' Amendment Bill, introduced by the Hon. J. MacGregor and read a first time in the Legislative Council to-day, provides that the council of the New Zealand Law Society may establish a scheme for guaranteeing and securing the integrity of moneys received or held by solicitors for any person. • The bill provides that the society may, with the approval of at least three judges of the Supreme Court, of whom the Chief Justice shall be one, make rules providing: (1) for the payment of an annual sum to the society by practising solicitors, with power to exclude or differentiate as regards any class; (2) the payment of such special levies as may be resolved upon by the council; (3) providing for the management and control of any such moneys; (4) prescribing what claims may be made upon and paid by the society out of the moneys; (5) providing for the investigation of the affairs and accounts of any practising solicitor which the council of the society may consider proper; (6) prescribing such practice and methods to be observed by solicitors in the keeping of their trust accounts as in the opinion of the council will assist and make more effective the audit of such accounts; (7) imposing fines and penalties for breaches of the rules. Other clauses of the bill deal with the recovery of fines and penalties and provide that the Supreme Court may deal summarily with wilful breaches of the rules under the provisions of the principal Act.