MR AUSTIN IN EXPLANATION.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2381, 3 November 1880, Page 2

MR AUSTIN IN EXPLANATION.

[TO Til 10 KHITOIiJ Sin, —A report which has been published, of the case of White v. Brown is calculated to do me so much injury with my clients and the public, that I have to request that you will insert the following explanation ; I was admitted as a solicitor in England, and on ray admission here as a solictor in Dunedin I was informed that I need not take out my certificate as a barrister unless I wished to do so. as the profession of barrister and solicitor was amalgamated in (his colon}', and that solicitors had equal audience with barristers in all Courts. Being desirous of devoting myself to a solicitor’s practice,in which I had been trained for some years, I was simply admitted as a solicitor, and thought no more of the matter, thinking that my status was sufficient to entitle me to be heard in any Court.

In order that the public may judge what the false pretences mentioned in the report amount to, and how far one might be excused in tailing into an error of the kind, 1 beg to refer you to subsection 2 of section o of the Law Practitioners Act 18GI. It is as follows : “No person shall be entitled to be admitted and enrolled as a barrister unless he shall have been admitted as a solicitor of the Court after the passing of this Act, and no such rule as hereinafter provided shall be in force directing that barristers shall not practice as solicitors nor solicitors as barristers, and as such he shall be entitled to he admitted without examination." So that though I have not actually been en-

rolled as a barrister, believing it to be unnecessary, I am entitled to it without examination.

Section oil of the same Act states as follows:—“it shall be lawful for the judges of the Supreme Court, whenever they may deem it expedient to do so, from time to time to make rules of Court directing, that no barrister shall practice as a solicitor of the court and no solicitor shall practise as a barrister of the Court.” Is there not a natural inference to be drawn from these words that until such rules are made a solicitor may practise as a barrister? and that as long as he is admitted either as a barrister or solicitor he can practise as either or both ? At least this was the construction I put upon it, being considerably led to it by the remarks made to me on my admission here as a solicitor. The reporter forgot to mention one remark of his Honor’s with which I entirely agree, namely, that the occurrence only showed the necessity for a division of the profession as in England, where no individual can .be both a barrister and a solicitor at the same time. My agents arc preparing the papers for my immediate admission as a barrister.— I am, A-c., H. 8. AUSTIN. Timaru, November 1. 1880.