Business should ignore the call to ban "no win no pay" agreements by lawyers acting for claimant employees. Contingent fee arrangements can be the only assurance of justice for poor people who have been wronged. There is a simple principled solution to target "no win no pay" lawyers who foment unmeritorious grievance litigation.

Full costs against the loser would do it. If beleaugured employers knew that they were not guaranteed to lose (in time and costs) even if the claim proves spurious, they would not pay the legal standover artists just to get rid of the claim. That principle should apply in all areas. Justice is not done when the person in the wrong can leave the innocent defendant gravely out of pocket.

Pusillanimous NZ judges have thoroughly eroded that ancient principle. NZ is halfway toward the US position where losers don't pay the winner's costs. US law allows lawyers to blackmail settlements out of hapless defendants.

There are better ways to stop crooks and dud workers from abusing employment law. The first would be to end the idiocy that puts the ritual intracies of dismissal process above the merits. Another would simply restore respect for the adult human right to agree on your own terms of employment and to enforce them. For example, the ban on probationary periods deprives the unpromising employee of a fundamental human right – to ask for a chance to try-out for a probationary period. The anxious small employer's freedom of association is negated when  she can not stipulate for a trial perod.

New Zealand's employment lawyers profit from a disgraceful system. The best way to limit their extractions would be to dump the laws they exploit.