MR AUSTIN IN EXPLANATION.

Temuka Leader, Issue 314, 6 November 1880, Page 2

MR AUSTIN IN EXPLANATION.

TO THE EDTIOB. Sir, —The report of White v. Brown in this morning's Herald ia calculated to do me so much injury with my clients and the public that I have to ask you to favor me by inserting the following in explanation : I was admitted as a solicitor in England and on my admission here as a solicitor in Dunedin I was informed that I need not take out my certificate as a barrister unless I wished to do so, as the professions of barrister and solicitor were amalgamated in this colony, and that solicitors had equal audience with barristers in all Courts. Being desirous of devoting myself to a solicitor's practise in which I had been trained for some years I was simply admitted as a solicitor and thought no more of the matter, thiuking 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 falling into an error of the kind, I beg to refer you to sub-section 2 of section 5 of ''The Law Practitioners Act, 1861." It is as foliows : "No persons shall be eutitled 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 practise as solicitors nor solicitors as barristers, and in such he shall be ' entitled to be admitted without examination.' "

So that though I have not actually been enrolled as a barrister, believing it to be unnecessary, lam entitled to it without examination.

Section 59 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 practise 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 practice as a barrister 1 And that as long as he is admitted either as a barrister or solicitor he can practise as either or both 1 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 Herald's reporter, though giving special prominence to a matter which none of the Christchurch papers reported, forgot to mention one remark of his Honor's, with which I entirely agree, viz., 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 are preparing the papers for my immediate admission as a barrister.—lam, &c, H. S. Austin. Timaru, Nov. 2nd.