COURT PUBLICITY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 240, 10 October 1932, Page 8

COURT PUBLICITY.

PRESS AND LAW SOCIETY. NAMES IN COURT CASES. PUBLICATION RESUMED. To-day a decision of the Newspaper Proprietors' Association that the names of lawyers appearing in the Courts should not be included in the published reports of cases ceases to operate. It was decided some months ago that names of counsel be dropped from these reports. This, action followed a memorandum of July 22, 1931, of a joint arrangement between the president of the Law Society and the Public Trustee and issued by the Law Society to its branches. Exception was taken by the newspapers to clauses 1 and 2 of the memorandum, which read as follows:—

1. Complete cessation from newspaper and journal advertising by the Public Trust Office and the legal profession immediately existing , contracts expire. Advantage of any clauses in existing contracts which enable the advertiser to cancel at an earlier date, without financial sacrifice, is to be taken advantage of.

2. The New Zealand Law Society is to make an effort to induce the Guardian Trust and Executor Co. of New Zealand, Ltd., Auckland, New Zealand Insurance Company, Limited, Auckland, Perpetual Trustees and Agency Co., of New Zealand, Ltd., Dunedin, Trustees Executors and Agency Co., of New Zealand, Ltd., Dunedin, to fall into line by discontinuing ail advertising contracts immediately they expire and to cease all newspaper and journal advertising.

It was felt by the newspaper managements that this Was a direct and unwarranted attack on their business, and as a protest it was decided that the courtesy that had been extended to the profession by the publication of the names of its members engaged in Court cases should be -withdrawn. The repu-

tations of lawyers practising at the Bar have been immensely assisted by this advertising. In some it is not too much to say that a great reputation has been founded on the publicity attending a single cause celebre.

It was not the intention to permanently penalise practitioners, ► and especially young barristers with reputations still to make, by arbitrarily maintaining the withdrawal of the privilege they had so long enjoyed. At a meeting in Wellington at the end of September of members of the Newspaper Proprietors' Association it was resolved > "That in the event of a satisfactory letter being received from the Law Society expressing their intention to regard clause 2 as a ' dead letter,' the matter be dropped." This decision was conveyed in a letter to the president of the Law Society, who replied: "I have to thank you for your letter of even date, and to say in reply that an arrangement has been made with the Public Trustee whereby clause 2 of the agreement between the Public Trustee and the New Zealand Law Society is to he regarded as inoperative and may therefore be treated as a ' dead letter.'"

There the matter ends, and this explanation is given to acquaint the public with the bare facts of a matter that may have aroused at least some speculation if not a great deal of interest.