'There is no place in the legal profession for lawyers who act dishonestly,' tribunal rules
An immigration lawyer has been struck off from the profession after getting convicted on charges involving the employment of a migrant worker in 2022.
The New Zealand Lawyers and Conveyancers Disciplinary Tribunal struck off in August Joanne Cottrell, an immigration adviser and lawyer, from the roll of barristers and solicitors of the High Court of New Zealand.
"There is no place in the legal profession for lawyers who act dishonestly and then abandon their responsibilities to their profession," the tribunal said.
"Ms. Cottrell's actions fall under this description, and after the hearing we determined that there was no disciplinary outcome short of strike-off which would meet our statutory obligations to protect the public and uphold the standards and the reputation of the profession."
Convictions against lawyer
The tribunal's decision follows the criminal convictions that Cottrell received in 2022 for providing false or misleading information to Immigration New Zealand.
She was also convicted of aiding and abetting a person to breach visa conditions.
The convictions stem from Cottrell's move to hire a migrant worker in 2016.
The migrant worker paid $15,000 to CBL, a recruitment agency owned by Cottrell, to help him find work in the field of civil engineering. Around the same time, he also paid Cottrell Law $20,000 to assist him in obtaining a skilled migrant visa.
In March 2017, Cottrell filed an application for a work visa for the migrant worker, listing him as a "junior site supervisor" under MDL, another company where the lawyer was the sole director and shareholder.
This is despite the employee working as a painter for a company owned by the husband of a Cottrell Law employee, and later being supervised when he worked as a builder in 2018.
The worker's visa in 2016 eventually expired in April 2019 after two extensions. Cottrell's work visa for him, on the other hand, had been declined in October 2019.
The migrant worker, however, was only informed that his work visa application had been rejected in January 2020 by a staff member at Cottrell Law.
According to the court, Cottrell failed to advise the migrant worker that he was unlawfully in New Zealand and liable to deportation. She also failed to tell him in a timely manner that his application in 2017 had been rejected in 2019.
Cottrell was then sentenced to four months of community detention, as well as reparation worth $1,000 to her victims.
Misconduct proven
The tribunal said Cottrell's actions have been proven "to the level of misconduct."
"First, it is apparent that Ms. Cottrell profited from a vulnerable immigrant's position by having him engaged either by her own company or the company of a close friend at a minimal rate which did not reflect his skills," the tribunal said.
"Second, she then declared falsely the nature of [the worker's] employment."
The tribunal also pointed out that she encouraged the migrant worker to receive payments in cash thereby "arguably defeating Inland Revenue requirements," and that she failed to advise him that his application had been declined for almost a year.
"We consider that both limbs of s 7(1)(a) of the LCA (Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006) have been established in that her conduct was disgraceful and dishonourable and also represented a reckless if not wilful breach of the rules," the tribunal said.