High Court adds Michael Arthur, Amokura Kawharu as Auckland judges
Judith Collins, attorney-general, has announced the appointments of Francis Cooke as a Supreme Court judge, Rebecca Edwards as a Court of Appeal judge, and Michael Arthur and Amokura Kawharu as High Court judges sitting in Auckland.
Helen Winkelmann, New Zealand’s chief justice, welcomed the recent appointments in a media statement.
Arthur’s appointment comes into effect on 1 December 2025, while Cooke’s, Edwards’s, and Kawharu’s terms take effect on 9 February 2026. Arthur and Kawharu will be sworn in on 17 December 2025 and 16 February 2026, respectively, at the Auckland High Court.
Most recently, Cooke and Edwards have been judges of the Court of Appeal and the High Court, respectively. On the other hand, Arthur has been an Auckland barrister and solicitor, while Kawharu has been an Auckland-based barrister.
The government’s news release and the New Zealand courts’ media statement provide more information regarding the appointees’ professional experience and educational background.
Justice Cooke served as a foreign solicitor at Ashurst Morris Crisp in London, UK, then worked for Chapman Tripp from 1992–94. He joined the independent bar in 1994.
After acting as junior counsel assisting the Winebox Inquiry from 1994–97, he worked on public law and commercial litigation matters.
Cooke received a Queen’s Counsel designation in 2004. He became a High Court judge in 2018 and a Court of Appeal judge in 2024.
He earned an LLB (honours) from Victoria University of Wellington in 1989 and an LLM from the University of Cambridge in 1990.
Justice Edwards served as a solicitor at Russell McVeagh in Auckland and worked at Herbert Smith in London, UK. She rejoined Russell McVeagh as a senior solicitor in 1998 and left the firm in 2003.
As a barrister sole, she focused on commercial civil litigation, with an emphasis on contractual, shareholder, and insolvency disputes.
After Edwards joined the permanent bar in the Cook Islands in 2010, she represented the respondents in the first two Cook Islands appeals to the Privy Council. She became a High Court judge in June 2015.
She obtained a BA and an LLB (honours) from the University of Auckland in 1993 and an LLM from the University of Virginia in 1996.
Arthur became a solicitor at Jack Riddett Tripe, a Whanganui law firm, in 1990. At Cameron Markby Hewitt, a London-based law firm, he handled the defence of large professional indemnity claims from 1994–96. He gained admission to the English bar in 1995.
He joined Chapman Tripp in 1997 and became a partner in the firm’s Auckland litigation team in 2006. There, his general commercial litigation practice focused on corporate restructuring and insolvency.
Arthur received an LLB from Victoria University of Wellington in 1989 and an LLM in commercial law from Auckland University in 2009.
Kawharu (Ngāti Whātua and Ngāpuhi) worked as a clerk and as a solicitor at Chapman Tripp in Auckland. She began working as a solicitor at Gilbert & Tobin in Sydney in 2000 and served as corporate counsel at Vodafone NZ Ltd. from 2003–04.
She was a lecturer then an associate professor at the University of Auckland from 2005–20, during which time she published research texts centred on commercial and international arbitration and related fields in legal journals and books. She co-authored Williams & Kawharu on Arbitration, an arbitration law text, with Sir David Williams.
Kawharu wrapped up a five-year term as Law Commission president in September 2025.
She obtained a BA and LLB (honours) from the University of Auckland in 1996, an LLM (first class) from the University of Cambridge in England in 2004, and a PhD from Victoria University of Wellington in 2023.
