Georgina Bond
Plenty of Paul Collins’ friends are winding down their working lives, but the Auckland barrister is heading in the opposite direction.
After almost 40 years in legal practice, Collins has taken on one of the most specialised roles in the justice system as New Zealand’s new Judicial Conduct Commissioner.
He has replaced Alan Ritchie, who has been in the role since 2015.
It’s the latest step in a legal career Collins never particularly mapped out, and one that started after dropping out of high school and going to work on construction sites.
An unexpected path to law
Collins grew up in Auckland and went to Henderson High School. He describes his upbringing as “emerging working class”.
His father was “the New Zealand equivalent” of Mad Men’s Don Draper “with all his foibles”, working for Ilott Advertising, at the time one of the country’s most influential full-service agencies, with clients including Edmonds, Creamoata, Bovril, Dulux, Todd Motors and Watties. His mother was a primary school teacher.
His parents separated while he was young and he says his family “disintegrated somewhat”.
Collins left high school without gaining University Entrance and went to work as a construction labourer – a job that included the development of Manukau City Centre in 1976.
Paul Collins and his wife Priscilla
Those years gave him the time and motivation to think about what he wanted to do instead.
It was his wife Priscilla who encouraged him to return to education and pursue an interest in law.
In his mid-20s, Collins became the first person on either side of his family to attend university, enrolling as a mature student at the University of Auckland and eventually graduating with an LLB (Hons).
“I was attracted to litigation but had no personal or cultural exposure to the law or legal profession so I went into the general litigation team at Russell McVeagh,” he says.
He enjoyed the firm and found senior colleagues to “tutor and nurture me within the context of a hardnosed environment”.
Collins later headed to the United States to complete an LLM at the University of Michigan, an experience he describes as a fantastic privilege and a life highlight.
He lived in off-campus family student accommodation with his wife and their first child, enjoying not just the study but the travel and cultural opportunities that came with it.
By the time he returned to New Zealand, Collins had two children and was in serious career and parent mode.
He had also realised big-firm life was not necessarily the one he wanted.
Collins went on to have four children and wanted a legal career that would allow him to be involved in their lives. He joined a smaller Auckland firm, Glaister Ennor, where he spent 20 years, ultimately becoming its senior litigation partner.
It was there that he came across the work that would define the next three decades of his career.
‘The combination of humanity and law’
At Glaister Ennor, Collins worked alongside senior partner Stuart Ennor, whose practice included regulation of the legal profession and disciplinary work.
As Ennor’s health declined, Collins began backing him up and taking on more of that work.
There was no grand plan to specialise in professional regulation.
“I fell into it. It was an opportunity that came to me at Glaister Ennor and I grabbed it, ran with it and it became a genuine specialist area for me,” he says.
“I’ve seen this for myself in other people – the direction you take in the law is partly your own inclination and also the senior people you have the good fortunate to meet and whose coat tails you can ride on. And I’m very grateful to Glaister Ennor for that.”
Over the following decades, Collins became increasingly involved in professional disciplinary and regulatory work, dealing with everything from complaints and discipline to practising issues and fidelity fund cases involving theft and considerable distress.
“What I like [in this space] is the combination of humanity and law. And black letter law so-to-speak, and I like the moral dimension to it.
“I’m a person who is conscious of, and understanding, I think, of human frailty and am not judgmental in that way. But I also have a view about the importance of professional standards and I think those things serve me well.”
The work held his interest partly because it could take him into almost any area of law.
He worked with district law societies around the country and later with the regulatory structures established under the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006.
“I’ve always enjoyed the people I’ve worked with – good people serving the legal profession with the best of motives and competency.”
Collins spent nine years as convenor of the National Standards Committee and is convenor of the New Zealand Law Society’s Ethics Committee.
“It’s true to say, I’ve never worked with a person in one of the law society regulatory organisation who I didn’t get on well with and who I didn’t respect,” he says.
Acting on both sides of disciplinary proceedings – prosecuting and defending – has also given him a view from both sides.
Despite spending much of his career dealing with lawyers when something has gone wrong, Collins says it has not left him with a dim view of the profession.
“Overwhelmingly, the vast majority of lawyers are dedicated and committed and have strong professional values. Sometimes, people make mistakes or errors of judgment, which need to be subjected to disciplinary processes, but I still have a very optimistic view about our profession.”
He says lawyers facing disciplinary proceedings generally respond well when treated respectfully and non-judgmentally by those responsible for prosecuting them.
“I just a play with a straight bat, I suppose,” Collins says.
And after three decades of disciplinary work, has he become cynical about human behaviour? Collins isn’t sure cynical is the right word.
“Well any lawyers who works in contentious areas I think would say nothing much surprises them about human nature.
“Whether that’s cynicism, I don’t know, but I’m not really surprised by anything and I think lawyers are required to be suspicious of people’s motives and to look beneath the surface. That is a lawyer’s role in contentious matters.”
Alongside practice, Collins has spent time writing and speaking about professional responsibility. He taught for a period at the University of Auckland, has contributed to legal texts and regularly presented professional seminars.
He’s a contributing author to Professional Responsibility in New Zealand, has been a consulting editor for The Laws of New Zealand: Lawyers and Conveyancers, and wrote a handbook for Lawyers Standards Committees.
Recently, a lawyer attending the New Zealand Law Society’s ‘Stepping Up’ course told him a video of a seminar Collins gave around 2013 on eligibility to practise on one’s own account was still being shown.
“So that’s nice and a nice contribution to have made,” he says.
“Overall I enjoy contributing through writing or presenting. “I’ve always thought there should be more to my career than just grinding out the legal work each day.”
A role that needs ‘a bit of grey hair’
The Judicial Conduct Commissioner receives and assesses complaints about judicial conduct and decides what further steps, if any, should be taken.
It’s a role Collins had been interested in for some time.
After almost 40 years in practice – and three decades specialising in professional regulation – taking it on at this stage of his career also felt right.
“I would say it was the one public-type appointment role I thought would really interest and suit me. And it seemed to be a natural progression and in my more mature practising years. It’s a role that needs a bit of grey hair, put it that way,” he says.
Collins is cautious about offering views on the office or changes he might make when he has only just got his feet under the desk.
But he already sees strong connections between the work he has done throughout his career and the task ahead.
There are some important differences too.
While he has previously been a decision-maker through his standards committee work, as Judicial Conduct Commissioner the responsibility rests personally with him.
Central to his approach will be maintaining perspective.
“If I am dealing with a complaint, I want to have the ability to put myself in the shoes of both parties, that is the judge and the complainant, and to maintain that degree of perspective.”
A different working life
The Judicial Conduct Commissioner is not a full-time position, so Collins will continue practising as a barrister.
But the appointment means he can no longer appear in courts and tribunals before judges who fall within the commissioner’s jurisdiction.
After decades of litigation, he is leaving that part of practice behind and concentrating instead on advisory and other non-court work.
He is looking forward to a more manageable workflow, less characterised by the intense peaks and troughs of litigation, although he does not expect the new role itself to lack intensity.
What appeals to him is the decision-making.
“I enjoy making decisions, looking at something, evaluating, seeing it from both sides, applying the rules that apply through the legislation and having the result and having a decision… I do not shirk that.”
And there is plenty outside the law to occupy him.
Collins and his wife have four adult children and five grandchildren, and enjoy travelling together, generally taking at least one significant trip each year.
He is a Warriors season-ticket holder, enjoys old American cars – although he hasn’t owned one for a long time – and remains involved with his church.
His days start early. Collins is up at 5am at his Devonport home to go to the gym before work and likes to be at his desk by 8.30am.
Retirement, it’s fair to say, is not calling yet.
“I enjoy what I do. If you find your right groove in a legal career, it is totally absorbing and interesting because it deals with the full range of humanity and human issues and the complexities of the law.”
Almost four decades after finding his way into law, Collins appears to have found his groove.
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