IS IT TOO LONG?

Gisborne Times, Volume LXVII, Issue 10566, 20 April 1928, Page 6

IS IT TOO LONG?

EASTER- LEGAL VACATION. A UCKLA N D BUSIN ESS-MAN’ 3 COMPLAINT. (Special to the Times.) AUCKLAND. April 17. That considerable inconvenience is caused to the commercial community because of the ten days’ vacation observed by the legal professon and the stock exchange, and, to a large extent, bv tlie land agents, is the gist of a complaint made by a leading business man. He points out that, whereas the fortnight at Christmas coincides with tbe customary holiday's observed by thousands in the citv and count! the Easter vacation continues while the rest of the world is back at work. For many individuals and firms who have legal business to transact or financial arrangements to adjust, this involves unnecessary inconvenience and delay.

“What is the position,’’ he asks, “of a man who in returning to li:s business on the Tuesday after Easter is confronted with the' immediate necessity for obtaining a legal opinion ? He finds he must waste six days before his legal advisers return from a holiday at Rotorua. How many people in urgent need of shortdated loans have to wait the attendance of their solicitors for days just because the legal profession sees fir to take its vacation when everyone else has finished theirs? The reaction on the Courts of Justice is equally as serious.” There appears to be some division of opinion in the legal profession itself regarding the expediency of a long Easter vacation. Some members particularly those connected with legal firms in partnerships, would seen to welcome a . drastic curtailmentcontending that no hardship would be entailed in keeping the offices open, while avoiding the congestion of work that accrues-on the resumption of duties. On the other hand, many practitioners in business on their own account- profess to find unfairness in a system that would enable large offices to remain, open lot tlie transaction of business, with the principals away on holidays, while a man with, perhaps, only one typist n\ his office, would be obliged to close if he wished to keep the vacation.