Further to Stuff’s grifter-advocate story…

A dodgy employment advocate with several aliases has been exposed by Stuff this morning:

Brent Edwards? Brent Tomich? Brent Willis? A fraudster’s ever-changing identities and his new business | Stuff  (Tony Wall, 31 October 2025)

We asked around, and Auckland advocate Lawrence Anderson remembered picking up a client in 2021, who was making an otherwise unremarkable claim over a disputed 90 day trial.  The matter settled in mediation.

The employee client, “Ms S”, had previously been represented by Brent, whose surname we don’t really know, as the title of the Stuff article suggests.  Brent’s trading name was NZ Wide Employment Law.  A company with that name was incorporated in August 2025 but wound up a couple of months later.

It’s not uncommon for employees to jump ship if they’re not happy with their advocate or even lawyer, and that’s what Ms S did.  There’s an expectation that a jilted advocate will pass the file to the new representative on request. 

Depending on the circumstances, the original advocate would usually be expect to be paid for work done.  But it’s often not straightforward - where the client is dissatisfied with that work, a dispute may arise, which the Disputes Tribunal normally deals with.

We recently wrote about the demise of Maniototo Enterprises Ltd which advocate Allan Halse subcontracted to for 17 months, following the litigation-driven liquidation of his company Culturesafe NZ Ltd in August 2022.  A lot of disputes arose between Maniototo and those clients who wanted Halse to take over the file through his own company Cultureshift NZ Ltd. 

Brent kicked out

When Anderson took over Ms S’ claim, he asked Brent, then under the name Tomich, for the file.  The emails that were exchanged speak for themselves:

Anderson to Tomich, 060621 8.26pm

Please provide me with: 1. A copy of the full recording you have with [Ms S] 2. Evidence that there was consent from [Ms S] for you to record. 3. Evidence that there was consent from [Ms S] for you to make contact with her employer. 4 Evidence that there was consent from [Ms S] as to the invoice you are attempting to charge. 5. All communications between yourself and her employer. 6 . All other relevant documents including the “client care form”. [Ms S] tells me she did not fill out a form, more so, you were asking her a lot of questions, perhaps you filled out the form?

Tomich to Anderson, 8.33pm

No your request is declined.

Anderson, 8.45pm

            Why are you not willing to provide the information requested of your agency?

Tomich, 8.53pm

As this is between [Ms S] and our business. All that information will be forwarded by the [Disputes Tribunal] to your client.  People need to be held accountable for giving verbal consent and after work is done walk away.  Free rides stop here.

Anderson, 9.11pm

NZ Wide Employment Law has not identified precisely what legal entity it is, is it a company or is it you personally?  While involvement of BayCorp and the Disputes Tribunal is directly with [Ms S], a written response to either would be furnished by [Ms S] with my assistance.  In terms of privacy laws, I am instructed to seek the information I requested of you, for which you declined, for which a complaint to the Privacy Commissioner could become the next stage to this matter.  I have had a lot of experience with debt collection, BayCorp and the Disputes Tribunal, and I can tell your experience is very limited based on your statements and that line in the invoice in CAPITAL letters. You don’t know what you are doing.

Tomich, 9.24pm

How my business is set up is none of your business.  Send away to the Privacy Comissonar (sic).  If you think your emails will intimidate me you are sadly mistaken.  Your just another NO win NO fee bully.  You should be very careful regarding the line you are taking.  I do not and will not deal with you.  I will file the forms I need to and it can be decided by the DT.  Please refrain from any contact with me.        

The invoice was for $1,581.25 including GST, purportedly for “Full representation from start to finish” in a “wrongful dismissal case”.  It was disputed because Tomich claimed that he had written to the employer, but the employer never received an email.  We don’t know what work he actually did.

Anyway, Stuff reporter Tony Wall was onto him for unrelated reasons.

Tristam Price, Editor (and occasional advocate)