The Lane Neave partner especially enjoys helping special needs children
Arran Hunt wanted to be a lawyer – then he saw the true nature of the job and decided to put his talent with computers to good use instead. When he hit his late 20s, however, the siren call of his original dream overcame his initial reservations.
Today, Hunt is a renowned immigration and social media law specialist who has tackled medical and humanitarian cases and appeals before the Immigration and Protection Tribunal. He has worked on online harm legislation, terms of use, privacy, defamation, and IP matters; nonetheless, the work he is proudest of is the help he extends to special needs children who need visas.
In the first part of this interview, the new Lane Neave partner shares with NZ Lawyer what he considers to be the most memorable moments in his career and the two most important things he’s been part of this year.
What made you choose a career in law, and what's your favourite part of the job?
Growing up, my mother loved LA Law. I’d watch these people walk around the courtroom, arms waving out pointing at people, in complete authority with nothing more than their voice. Watching them, I wanted to be a lawyer but quickly realised that the job was nothing like LA Law.
As I had a childhood talent with computers, I did go off and design systems for a while, before finally chasing the childhood dream in my late 20s.
What in your opinion has been the most memorable event of your career to date?
It must be one of my visa applications where the clients had been told, by other professionals, they had no chance of success, yet we got them the result they were after. We’ve had that with people who had been unlawful for years, others with cancer, others whose only tie to the country is an NZ citizen child, and more.
The most memorable though are when it relates to children who are special, and who have been effectively written off by some because of that. These are amazing kids, unique in their own way, dearly loved, yet dismissed based on an assumption that because they have X, they will cost the country Y. Those fights are the most memorable, especially being able to tell the family when their visas are granted.
What in your opinion was the most important thing you got involved in over the past year?
Becoming a father for the first time.
For work, most probably our work on applications that include children with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Immigration New Zealand (INZ) has taken a new stance that almost any child with ASD should be considered high cost, even though there is such a wide difference in how ASD can impact someone. We’ve had a lot of successes with our clients, but we’re waiting for one appeal from the Immigration and Protection Tribunal which we hope will reset INZ’s handling of these applications, giving them a more realistic direction.
If you could relive one day in your life, which day would it be and why?
I’m not one to have regrets, as each decision in life got me to where I am today, even the negative ones which I hopefully learned from. However, there are several times in life when I wish I’d acted a little differently, typically when I perhaps could have answered something another way to lessen the impact of my words on someone. It’s not that I would stand to gain anything from doing so, but it would be nice to be able to reload a saved game and respond in a different way that we all felt better about after.
