The public record: Joyce, Menzies and commentary about employment advocates

The public record: Joyce, Menzies and commentary about employment advocates

The Employment Court has criticised some of my communications and has made costs orders in litigation in which I acted. Those judgments and orders are part of the public record. I do not agree with every criticism, factual characterisation or wider conclusion that has subsequently been drawn from them.

I would express some communications differently today. That does not mean I accept the broader portrayal of my conduct that has sometimes followed, or that criticism of my wording answers the procedural, evidential and professional-conduct issues I was raising about other participants in the litigation.

This page is my account of the record. The point is not to erase adverse findings. It is to distinguish what was actually decided from allegations, commentary and conclusions that go further than the judgments themselves.

The essential points

• Joyce v Ultimate Siteworks included criticism of some of my communications, but there was no contempt finding against me and I was not removed as representative. The Court also recorded Ultimate Siteworks' mixed success on four interlocutory matters, its failure on the sanctions application, and that the conduct complained of did not appear to have increased its costs.
• The later Menzies v Corrigan litigation included procedural losses, including refusal of a late challenge. Those outcomes did not determine every underlying issue concerning liquidation, accounting, document provenance or the reach of compliance remedies.
• Reporting that expanded “NZBA” into the New Zealand Bar Association was, in my view, factually wrong. The relevant organisation was the New Zealand Business Association.
• A separate dispute with Daniel Church involved language that attracted criticism, but it also involved a genuine procedural issue about whether compliance relief required a separate statement of claim. I do not accept that the criticism of the exchange eliminates the significance of that procedural issue.

Joyce v Ultimate Siteworks

Joyce v Ultimate Siteworks has been repeatedly cited in wider discussion about employment advocates. The Court criticised some of my communications with opposing counsel. That is part of the judgment. It is not, however, the whole procedural history.

Ultimate Siteworks initially sought orders which the Judge understood to be in the nature of contempt orders against me. That request was withdrawn. There was no contempt finding against me and I was not removed as Mr Joyce's representative.

The costs judgment also records matters that receive much less attention in later commentary. Ultimate Siteworks had mixed success on four interlocutory matters and did not succeed on its sanctions application. The Court found that the conduct complained of did not appear to have increased Ultimate Siteworks' costs, and no uplift was made on that basis.

I therefore reject any presentation of Joyce as though it were simply a disciplinary judgment about me. It was a costs judgment arising from litigation that had become highly acrimonious. The judgment itself records my position that the opposing representatives were not blameless and that I had been talked over and shouted at.

I remain critical of aspects of the way the opposing case was conducted. That criticism is not based merely on personality or tone. The employer failed in its security-for-costs application, had mixed success on the other interlocutory matters, and failed in its sanctions application. In my view, parts of the procedural approach were unnecessarily combative and added complexity to litigation that was already difficult. Criticism of my communications should not make those matters disappear from the record.

Readers can review the Employment Court costs judgment directly.

Menzies v Corrigan

The Menzies litigation was not successful on every application. Most recently, the Employment Court refused an application to extend time for a challenge that had been filed substantially late. That is the procedural outcome. It does not follow that every factual allegation, accounting interpretation, document-handling issue or step taken in the liquidation was thereby vindicated.

The underlying dispute involved Prime Focus Security Limited, a company in liquidation, its former employee Mr Corrigan, my client Mr Menzies, liquidator material, accounting allegations and later attempts to obtain relief affecting Mr Menzies personally. The Authority also made an order requiring Mr Menzies to pay, or take steps to put the company in funds to pay, an award made against the company.

That raised an important and unusual question about the reach of compliance remedies where the underlying debtor was a company in liquidation. It also made the accuracy and provenance of the accounting and liquidation material particularly important.

I have set out those issues in more detail in Menzies v Corrigan [2026] NZEmpC 151 – late challenge refused, substantive issues remain unresolved.

The Court did order costs against me personally in Menzies, but I strongly disagree with that outcome. I was acting on Mr Menzies' instructions in litigation the Court itself had described as brought for good reasons and in good faith and involving important, complex issues. Meanwhile, the other side was expressly seeking up to three months' imprisonment, a $40,000 fine and sequestration of his property. In that context, I do not accept that an unsuccessful discovery application justified personal liability against his representative. My submissions and the full paper trail are here.

Why the document pathway mattered

One recurring issue was the provenance of material from the liquidator. The Authority had sought documents from the liquidator, and material was subsequently provided through Catherine Stewart Barrister's office before reaching the Authority and the parties.

That did not, by itself, establish misconduct by anyone. It did create legitimate questions about what had been requested, what had been supplied, whether the production was complete, and what communications accompanied it. Those questions were the reason later discovery was pursued.

I remain critical of aspects of the opposing representatives' procedural approach in the Menzies litigation. In particular, there was a genuine dispute about attempts to pursue compliance relief through the existing de novo challenge. After I raised the issue with the Registry, the Registrar advised in substance that a separate statement of claim was required and that a compliance order was not within the scope of remedies available in the existing challenge.

In my opinion, attempting to pursue that relief through the existing challenge was a material procedural error and an example of procedurally incompetent case handling. That is a criticism of a specific procedural step, not a general personal attack. It is also why I reject a one-sided account in which the conduct of opposing representatives disappears while only my communications are scrutinised.

The NZBA reporting issue

A concrete factual point concerns references to “NZBA”. RNZ and LawNews reported the issue as involving the New Zealand Bar Association. The Employment Court judgment itself referred to “EMA and NZBA”; it did not expand NZBA to the New Zealand Bar Association.

The relevant direct email was sent to contact@nzba.org, the contact address used by the New Zealand Business Association. My position is therefore that the organisation concerned was the New Zealand Business Association, not the New Zealand Bar Association.

That is not a question of tone or interpretation. It is a factual point capable of being checked against the correspondence and the organisations concerned.

Readers can compare the sources directly: RNZ, LawNews, and the Employment Court judgment.

The Daniel Church procedural dispute

One exchange with Daniel Church later became part of public criticism of my conduct. The exchange included language I would not use in the same way now. I do not, however, accept that the language determines the merits of the procedural issue being argued or justifies the broader characterisations subsequently attached to the exchange.

The issue was whether compliance relief could properly be pursued within the existing de novo challenge without a separate statement of claim. I raised that question with the Employment Court Registry.

The Registrar subsequently advised, in substance, that a compliance-order determination stands on its own, that a separate statement of claim would be required to seek a compliance order from the Court under s 138(6), and that a compliance order was not within the scope of remedies available in the de novo challenge. That materially supported the procedural objection I had raised.

I also dispute any suggestion that the language used in that particular exchange reflected how I dealt with the other staff of Catherine Stewart Barrister. My dealings with other staff were professional.

Allegations and public commentary

I dispute the characterisation of my conduct in the Menzies litigation as harassment. There was contentious litigation, document seeking, costs disputes and strongly worded disagreement. Readers should distinguish between allegations made by a participant, submissions recorded by a Court, findings actually made by the Court, and the language later adopted in public commentary.

Catherine Stewart was counsel involved in the underlying litigation, sought costs against me personally, and later commented publicly on the case and on regulation of employment advocates. She was entitled to express her view. Her direct involvement in the litigation is nevertheless relevant context when those comments are presented as part of a wider debate about the profession.

The same applies to media reporting. Where I consider a factual proposition wrong, a procedural history incomplete, or an important distinction lost, I am entitled to identify the primary material and explain why I disagree.

My position

The judicial criticisms and costs orders exist and are part of the public record. Recording them is not agreement with every criticism, the reasoning behind every order, or the weight later commentary has placed on them. I continue to disagree with aspects of those judgments and with the way my conduct has subsequently been portrayed.

Some communications could have been better expressed. That is not a concession that my conduct should be treated as the central feature of these cases, nor that it was as consequential to the litigation as later commentary has sometimes suggested. In Joyce, for example, the Court expressly found that the conduct complained of did not appear to have increased the employer's costs.

I also do not accept that criticism of my communications gives opposing representatives a free pass. Where I consider their case handling procedurally wrong, unnecessarily combative or incompetent in a particular respect, I will continue to say so, but I will identify the specific conduct and the basis for that view.

Conclusion

I do not ask readers to pretend the criticism of me was never made. I do ask that it be kept in proportion and that the rest of the procedural record be considered as well.

There was no contempt finding against me in Joyce, and I was not removed as representative. Ultimate Siteworks had mixed interlocutory success and failed in its sanctions application. The later Menzies litigation involved substantive questions about liquidation, document provenance and the reach of compliance remedies that should not be confused with the procedural outcomes ultimately reached. The NZBA referred to in the relevant correspondence was the New Zealand Business Association, not the New Zealand Bar Association. And the procedural objection raised in the Daniel Church exchange existed independently of the language used to express it.

Those are matters capable of being checked against the primary documents. Readers can form their own view from the record.