LAW REPORTS

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2526, 29 July 1915, Page 9

LAW REPORTS

—9 COURT OP APPEAL MOTION FOR ADMISSION OPPOSITION BY LAW SOCIETY Yesterday morning the Court of Appeal was occupied with the hearing of nn application by John Edward Barltrop, of Feilding, for admission to the Supreme Court of New Zealand as a solicitor. The application wa3 opposed by tho Law Society. The Bench comprised Their Honours the Chief Justice (Sir Robert Stout), Mr. Justice Edwards, artd Mr. Justice Chapman. Sir John Findlay, K.C., with him Mr.'D. M. Findlay, appeared for the applicant, and Mr. A. Gray, K.C., with him Mr. D. It. Hoggard, for the Law Society. The applicant, in his affidavit supporting, his application, stated that he- was a law clerk, and had been employed in tho offices of Messrs. Adams and Kingdon, solicitors, Nelson, from 1882 to October, 1895. He was then employed .in the offices of the late Alfred Richmond, of Feilding, solicitor, for 19 years continuously until Mr. Richmond's death in September, 1914. He had since passed tho necessary examination entitling him to admission as a solicitor of the Supreme Court. He was 49 years of age, and was not a-waro of any act or thing being a bar to his admission as a solicitor. .

The grounds against tho Application were alleged by the Law Society as follow: —(1) That the applicant had practised as a solicitor without being duly qualified whilst ostensibly acting as the clerk of Philip Basil Atkinson; (2) that ho had touted for the business of his lato employer's clients with a view to obtaining same for his own personal advantage, to the detriment of the purchasers of the goodwill of his lato employer's business; (3) that he touted coupled with an attempt to deceive his lave employer's clients into giving him orders for documents by means of a false representation, and various other grounds. In the course of some preliminary remarks, Mr. Gray suggested, on behalf of the Law Society, that Mr. Atkinson was only a dummy, and that his business was really Barltrop's. Sir John Findlay submitted that such an allegation should not be made when Mr. Atkinson was not present. It was the first time such a thing had been suggested. 1 It was decided to adjourn the application until Wednesday next, to enable Mr. Atkinson to meet the' allegation, and also to give the applicant an opportunity of replying to fresh matters raised.