Brigitte is admitted as a barrister and solicitor of the High Court.
She has over a decade of experience working in politics across Australia and New Zealand. She has a Bachelor of Law from Victoria University, a Masters of Law from the Australian National University, and a Graduate Certificate in Counter-Terrorism from Interdisciplinary Center (Israel).
Brigitte spent three years providing political and media advice to the Embassy of Israel in Australia, whilst dealing with a number of high profile events. She worked as a Senior Advisor in state politics and worked on a number of Australian state and federal election campaigns. Brigitte was a Chief of Staff to an Australian Senator, before returning home to be the Senior Ministerial Advisor to the Minister of Education in the last National Government.
She has worked extensively with clients in the private sector to help them establish and maintain relationships with government, lobby on important issues, and drive campaigns to raise public interest. Brigitte particularly enjoys working with grassroots and member based organisations.
Brigitte has extensive knowledge of law making processes, how to best utilise the Official Information Act, and how to coordinate public interest campaigns across multiple channels. She is particularly interested and experienced in firearms law, electoral law and large scale reforms.
She is a regular commentator for RNZ, TVNZ, Newstalk ZB and a co-host of political podcast Three Gals One Beehive.
The Legal Complaints Review Officer vacated a lawyer professional disciplinary committee’s fine and censure of Stephen Franks and Franks Ogilvie.
The LCRO has released an extraordinarily prompt and unequivocal decision.
Stephen and the firm applied for a review against a confused conclusion by the National Standards Committee that would have overturned lawyers’ duties to clients. It would have obliged lawyers to refuse client instructions to write a letter that might upset the recipients even where the letter expressed the researched opinion of the firm, honestly conveyed the client’s position and was expressed courteously. The Committee considered that the lawyer should instead tell the client to write themselves, because it would be wrong for the lawyer to write just because the client wanted the letter to be more authoritative.
The Committee appeared to be uninterested in the free speech implications of this new constraint.
The process began a year ago with complaints from 6 people, including 2 practising lawyers. Some of the complainants were very public about their anger over a letter stating how liability could emerge for providers of “gender affirming care”.
We expected the complaints to be swiftly dismissed as ridiculous. Instead, the Complaints Service took them seriously and embarked on what has become a year-long secret process. We were not at all ashamed of adhering to the noble tradition of advocating for clients without fear or favour, so asked that the process not be confidential.
“Until a year or two ago, I’d have scoffed at anyone saying I could end my 50-year career as a lawyer being fined and censured by my profession for writing truthfully on behalf of a client warning recipients of emerging legal risks,” Stephen Franks said.
“As the LCRO Fraser Goldsmith observed – it is what lawyers do.
“Over my career on numerous occasions I’ve been involved in warning people about legal risks in continuing conduct that was previously lawful. Law changes frequently create liabilities for conduct that was previously lawful.”
Our firm specialises in advising and representing clients on law reform issues. As is usual for lawyers we must serve them whether or not we personally agree with client beliefs or objectives. When they seek our advice on the law, we give it honestly. In this case, before writing on the client’s instructions directly to providers of the controversial treatments we had written to two Ministers of Health. We’d tried to engage the Ministry on the legal risks thrown up after the UK Cass Review, and litigation in comparable jurisdictions. We got no substantive response or any engagement at all from the government.
The National Standards Committee criticised us (and our client) for communicating directly with the potentially liable practitioners because they felt we and they should have confined ourselves to advising the proper authorities of our concerns. The Committee did not even enquire what had preceded our letters.
It was novel for us, to be told that lawyers should only report to ‘the authorities’ and that it was wrong to communicate with those our client considers to be at risk of being found to be wrongdoers.
This LCRO decision restores the position that lawyers cannot be disciplined simply because third parties disagree with the views their clients wish to advance, or because those views touch on politically sensitive issues.
As the LCRO stated plainly:
“The very purpose of a lawyer or firm sending a letter on behalf of a client is, in many if not most instances, to endeavour to lend weight to whatever concern, position or purpose the client seeks to express or advance. That is what lawyers do.”
And that this “cannot conceivably be improper in principle.”
Significance for the Legal Profession
The LCRO put weight on the fact that none of the twenty recipients of the letter had themselves complained to the Law Society. Two of the complainants were lawyers themselves. The LCRO noted surprise at this, commenting “[I] wonder what their stance on the professional conduct issues would have been if the boot had been on the other foot.”
ENDS
Media enquiries:
Brigitte Morten, Managing Director
022 193 0225
Brigitte.morten@franksogilvie.co.nz
Note to Editors:
The full decision of the Legal Complaints Review Officer(LCRO 169/2025, [2025] NZLCRO 016) is publicly available here. The decision was issued on 23 February 2026.
Recently media reported on advice Franks Ogilvie provided to Kaipara District Council. The following is our statement on the matter -
Franks Ogilvie was instructed by the Kaipara District Council to provide an opinion outlining the legal obligations local government have to Māori.
This advice was to be delivered to all staff and consultants to help them understand the difference between what a Council must to, and what it may choose to do.
The Council did ask for advice on several specific questions that we might not have addressed in a general outline. That increased the size and scope of the report
Whilst unusual, we welcomed peer review by Simpson Grierson. We were confident that our advice correctly interpreted the statutes and was consistent with case law, including a recent High Court decision that confirmed Councils are not Treaty “partners”, but have obligations under the Local Government Act. It was in our client’s best interests to gain confidence from peer review in the orthodoxy of our advice. We also looked forward to discussion with fellow lawyers.
We saw little point in arguing over suggestions that did not alter the conclusions of the advice. We largely incorporated their additional points into the opinion. Where their views were unclear, we pursued (with the Council’s permission)discussion with Simpson Grierson. We received only written feedback reinforcing their original points.
In the few areas where we disagreed we chose the cautious approach that would ensure our mutual client was not provided conflicting advice. For example, in regard to the Long Term Plan we had advised that “as part of community outcomes the local authority must show how it plans to deliver for particular groups and “this would include Māori, iwi and hapū””. Simpson Grierson did not agree with this express reference. We maintained our original advice that the Long Term Plan is a significant document for local government and Māori as a local community should be included in its consideration.
Following our update of our opinion to reflect the Simpson Grierson feedback, the Council requested comment on several additional points. We were not involved indecisions on whether Simpson Grierson should review that additional advice. Given that the original peer review advice had shown no reason to doubt the orthodoxy and quality of our opinion in this area, we would have supported a Council view that it need not incur the further expense of more peer review. We doubt that the additional material would justify in any way a Simpson Grierson decision to deny “endorsement” of our advice to the mutual client
We were surprised by Simpson Grierson’s public comments, trying to resile from their confirmatory peer review, with the peculiar denial of endorsement. The Simpson Grierson attempt to distance themselves from their advice after it became a matter of political denunciation, has contributed to public criticism of Kaipara District Council.
We were not advised that Simpson Grierson were making a statement before they did so. No media outlet reporting on this opinion has sought our comment.
Director Brigitte Morten appeared on RNZ's Nine to Noon today to discuss the week in politics. Joining host Kathryn Ryan and former Green Party MP Gareth Hughes, they discussed the conflicting polls out this week, Parliament's decision to suspend Te Pati Maori MPs for three weeks, the Regulatory Standards Bill and security clearances for Parliament.
