we regularly act for senior gang members in civil MATTERS,
including criminal proceeds defence
Some senior members of motorcycle clubs will prefer to use an intermediary to communicate with their lawyers. That intermediary may be a wife, partner, mother, father, brother or someone else. We will need a formal consent form signed at the start of a matter where you authorise us and your intermediary to communicate about your case. A separate consent will be required for the solicitor on the record, and each barrister who is acting on your matter.
Important points to note:
1. We are private counsel first and foremost. If you require legal aid we will recommend legal aid barristers to you who we think are good.
2. Unless you are in receipt of legal aid, you will not have an 'immunity' or shield (partial or full) to adverse cost orders in the High Court. Costs are a normal and ordinary part of civil litigation. Criminal Proceeds defence is civil litigation, it is completely different to criminal defence procedure and law.
There is a general formula for how we work out costs under the High Court Rules 2016, and there is a scale of costs within those rules. As civil specialists, we are dealing with civil and commercial clients everyday who are accustomed to the civil regime and the expectation that the loser pays costs. However, we find members of gangs (and their associates and families) may only be used to criminal procedure. And what happens is, we find that many of you get annoyed and frustrated with the civil costs regime. We can explain to you how civil costs work, no problem.
Sometimes the police do not seek costs against an unsuccessful party, and sometimes they do. Whatever happens, we like to take a cautious and conservative approach beforehand and advise all private clients to have a certain buffer of funds available to pay an adverse costs order if needed. Remember, there are no guarantees in litigation. We put our evidence before the court, the Commissioner puts his evidence forward to, we argue over how the law applies to the facts, and then a High Court Judge makes a decision on the facts and law before him. There is no jury like in criminal law.
Property is at risk in civil.
Liberty is at risk in criminal.
In the civil jurisdiction, you need to accept there is much paperwork lawyers and yourselves will need to review and work on. We need to work together on this as a team of lawyers and clients.
Evidence is given by affidavit generally and you can expect the police will make "further enquiries" regarding property ownership, provenance (how the property came to be in a person's hands), and your IRD and banking records at the very least. The police will test your evidence as the proceeding goes. Further, in civil, our burden of proof is the "balance of probabilities". This burden simply asks 'what is more likely than not', rather than the criminal burden of 'beyond reasonable doubt'. So, we have a perfect storm of (1) the police doing continual investigation on your property and alleged property ownership arrangements, and (2) the burden of proof the police need to meet is very low. We can meet this challenge against Police, easily, but it requires you, our clients and your witnesses and family to be cooperative and constructive with the work we need to do.
To our initial surprise a few years ago, not all clients and their families have been cooperative, and in fact, sometimes they obstruct (ruin) their own chances of success in the High Court. As genuinely motivated lawyers who want to make a difference, this is gutting. We have two choices in this situation: continue to assist you, despite your own destruction of your case, or terminate our engagement. We make this decision based on a consideration of your interests in the proceedings and our duties to you as your barrister.
We have been unable to put up some great arguments in defence under the criminal proceeds regime for gang clients (that we worked very hard on!) because those clients did not engage with us in a timely way, and when they did, they could not be bothered with the amount of work that was required from them and simply gave up.
To be clear: we are not 'parties' to your proceeding. We cannot give evidence for you. This is where you must do the work asked of you by your lawyers. It is frustrating to see property forfeited to the crown and liquidated by the OA that could have easily remained in our client's possession (or part of the value of it) if that client had made an effort with their lawyers.
3. We can only move a case forward with a client's instructions. If we send an important email to you, and we do not hear back from you for weeks (or months), then court deadlines may pass, and we may lose any opportunity to make a difference in your case. We see this time and time again and it is not a good situation for anyone. You end up loosing your property, and we end up with a loosing Judgment to our name (!) and sometimes that Judgment ends up in the news and on social media platforms. A disastrous case reflects badly on us, and most of the time the general public will have no idea that the reason the case tanked was because of the client's own actions.
4. Communication is key. We are modern and accessible barristers. Forget what you have experienced with the old man barristers. We encourage regular communication and we know how to use text messages, emails, and messaging applications on smart phones. We also understand that the evenings and weekends may be the only time you have to properly consider your litigation, so we will make ourselves available to you.
1. We are private counsel first and foremost. If you require legal aid we will recommend legal aid barristers to you who we think are good.
2. Unless you are in receipt of legal aid, you will not have an 'immunity' or shield (partial or full) to adverse cost orders in the High Court. Costs are a normal and ordinary part of civil litigation. Criminal Proceeds defence is civil litigation, it is completely different to criminal defence procedure and law.
There is a general formula for how we work out costs under the High Court Rules 2016, and there is a scale of costs within those rules. As civil specialists, we are dealing with civil and commercial clients everyday who are accustomed to the civil regime and the expectation that the loser pays costs. However, we find members of gangs (and their associates and families) may only be used to criminal procedure. And what happens is, we find that many of you get annoyed and frustrated with the civil costs regime. We can explain to you how civil costs work, no problem.
Sometimes the police do not seek costs against an unsuccessful party, and sometimes they do. Whatever happens, we like to take a cautious and conservative approach beforehand and advise all private clients to have a certain buffer of funds available to pay an adverse costs order if needed. Remember, there are no guarantees in litigation. We put our evidence before the court, the Commissioner puts his evidence forward to, we argue over how the law applies to the facts, and then a High Court Judge makes a decision on the facts and law before him. There is no jury like in criminal law.
Property is at risk in civil.
Liberty is at risk in criminal.
In the civil jurisdiction, you need to accept there is much paperwork lawyers and yourselves will need to review and work on. We need to work together on this as a team of lawyers and clients.
Evidence is given by affidavit generally and you can expect the police will make "further enquiries" regarding property ownership, provenance (how the property came to be in a person's hands), and your IRD and banking records at the very least. The police will test your evidence as the proceeding goes. Further, in civil, our burden of proof is the "balance of probabilities". This burden simply asks 'what is more likely than not', rather than the criminal burden of 'beyond reasonable doubt'. So, we have a perfect storm of (1) the police doing continual investigation on your property and alleged property ownership arrangements, and (2) the burden of proof the police need to meet is very low. We can meet this challenge against Police, easily, but it requires you, our clients and your witnesses and family to be cooperative and constructive with the work we need to do.
To our initial surprise a few years ago, not all clients and their families have been cooperative, and in fact, sometimes they obstruct (ruin) their own chances of success in the High Court. As genuinely motivated lawyers who want to make a difference, this is gutting. We have two choices in this situation: continue to assist you, despite your own destruction of your case, or terminate our engagement. We make this decision based on a consideration of your interests in the proceedings and our duties to you as your barrister.
We have been unable to put up some great arguments in defence under the criminal proceeds regime for gang clients (that we worked very hard on!) because those clients did not engage with us in a timely way, and when they did, they could not be bothered with the amount of work that was required from them and simply gave up.
To be clear: we are not 'parties' to your proceeding. We cannot give evidence for you. This is where you must do the work asked of you by your lawyers. It is frustrating to see property forfeited to the crown and liquidated by the OA that could have easily remained in our client's possession (or part of the value of it) if that client had made an effort with their lawyers.
3. We can only move a case forward with a client's instructions. If we send an important email to you, and we do not hear back from you for weeks (or months), then court deadlines may pass, and we may lose any opportunity to make a difference in your case. We see this time and time again and it is not a good situation for anyone. You end up loosing your property, and we end up with a loosing Judgment to our name (!) and sometimes that Judgment ends up in the news and on social media platforms. A disastrous case reflects badly on us, and most of the time the general public will have no idea that the reason the case tanked was because of the client's own actions.
4. Communication is key. We are modern and accessible barristers. Forget what you have experienced with the old man barristers. We encourage regular communication and we know how to use text messages, emails, and messaging applications on smart phones. We also understand that the evenings and weekends may be the only time you have to properly consider your litigation, so we will make ourselves available to you.
