McKenzie Friends to be curtailed.

Mr. Incognito

http://www.courts.ie/Courts.ie/Library3.nsf/pagecurrent/49D88B362F44CF2780258170005BCEF2?opendocument

HC72 - McKenzie Friends
The Court of Appeal
and
The High Court
Re. McKenzie Friends

1. Litigants may obtain reasonable assistance from a lay person, sometimes called a McKenzie friend (MF). Litigants assisted by MFs remain litigants in person. MFs have no independent right to provide assistance. They have no right to act as advocates or to carry out the conduct of litigation. They have no entitlement to payment for their services.

2. In court MFs may:-

(1) Provide moral support for litigants;

(2) Take notes;

(3) Help with case papers, subject to paragraph 6 below:

(4) Quietly give advice on any aspect of the conduct of the case.

3. MFs may not:-

(1) Address the court, make oral submissions or examine witnesses. MFs do not have a right of audience or a right to conduct litigation. In exceptional circumstances a court may permit an MF to address the court. Such circumstances will be rare.

(2) Receive any payment for their services.

(3) Act as the litigants’ agent in relation to the proceedings;

(4) Manage litigants’ cases outside court, for example, by signing court documents.

4. Whilst litigants may receive reasonable assistance from MFs the court retains the power to refuse to permit such assistance. The court may do so where it is satisfied that the interests of justice and fairness do not require the litigant to receive such assistance. Where the court permits a litigant to receive assistance from a MF, it may regulate the manner in which assistance is provided. It may withdraw the permission if of opinion that the administration of justice is being impeded by the MF. If requested by the court a MF must provide his or her name, address and contact details.

5. Only one MF may assist a litigant in court.

6. The attention of litigants and proposed MFs is drawn to the provisions of section 58 of the Solicitors Act 1954 as amended which makes it a criminal offence for an unqualified person, as defined in the Act, to draw or prepare a document relating, inter alia, to any legal proceeding either directly or indirectly for or in expectation of any fee, gain or reward.

7. This Practice Direction shall come into force on 1st October, 2017.

Dated 31 July, 2017

Sean Ryan
President of the Court of Appeal

Peter Kelly
President of the High Court

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

vector

Mr. Incognito wrote: »

http://www.courts.ie/Courts.ie/Library3.nsf/pagecurrent/49D88B362F44CF2780258170005BCEF2?opendocument

The summary of Sec 58 of the Solrs act seems incorrect.

"...which makes it a criminal offence for an unqualified person, as defined in the Act, to draw or prepare a document relating, inter alia, to any legal proceeding"

The Act doesn't seem to cover all legal proceedings as the above sugggest. It Act is specific about specific things that can only be done by a Solicitor. Only those things related to....

(a) the drawing or preparing of a document relating to real or personal estate or any legal proceeding,

(b) the procuring or attempting to procure the execution by an Irish citizen of a document relating to—

(i) real or personal estate, or movable or immovable property, situate or being outside the State and the United Kingdom, or

(ii) any legal proceeding, actual or in contemplation, of which the subject-matter is any such estate or property,

(c) the making of an application, or the lodging of a document for registration, under the Registration of Title Act, 1891, or any Act amending that Act, at the Land Registry or to or with a local registering authority,

(d) the taking of instructions for, or drawing or preparing of, documents on which to found or oppose a grant of probate or letters of administration.

The specificity of the above seems to be what allows those many 'do it yourself' divorce paperwork sellers to ply their trade.

If a new interpretation is that one cannot help people prepare civil bills and affidavits of means/welfare etc then those many divorce firms are scuppered?

Peregrinus

"Any legal proceeding" means what it says. Divorce is a legal proceeding. Firms which prepare civil bills, affidativits, etc for divorce proceeding are in breach of the Act if they don't have a lawyer with a current practising certificate involved. This isn't a new interpretation.

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

whippet

Fred Swanson wrote: »

Surely the applicant can claim they prepared the documents themselves from precedents? Not talking freemen now, just ordinary joes.

Anyone can lie in court ... but getting caught telling porkies can have reprocussions

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

Peregrinus

Publishing a generic precedent is not a problem. Most people who are paying for a generic precedent would rather pay for one drawn up by an appropriately-qualified person, but an unqualified person providing a precedent is not in breach of s. 58.

However adapting a generic precedent for use in particular proceedings would be caught by s. 58. You can do this yourself for use in proceedings to which you are party, but if you do it for somebody else's proceedings, that's an offence. A McKenzie friend is not a party to proceedings; therefore he cannot prepare or draw up documents relating to the legal proceedings.

vector

So...these do it youraelf divorce forms should provide document with blank spaces (e.g. insert name here, insert address here)

But... in reality all that I have encountered do populate data and provide submission ready documents.

It seems to me that the law society should stamp this out

Peregrinus

I think a software program that populates fields with generic data like names, addresses and dates that the user provides probably doesn't rise to the kind of document preparation that section 54 is aimed at.