An Environment Court judge and Queen's Counsel become the newest members of the High Court's bench
Attorney-General David Parker has announced the appointment of Environment Court Judge Melanie Harland and Wellington Queen’s Counsel Andru Isac as new High Court judges. They will sit in Auckland and Wellington, respectively.
Harland graduated with a Bachelor of the Arts degree in 1984 and earned her law degree in 1985, both from the University of Auckland. She began her law career as a staff solicitor at Meredith Connell. In 1987, Harland moved to McCaw Lewis in Hamilton, where she was subsequently promoted to associate and later joined the firm’s partnership.
Harland became a District Court judge sitting in Hamilton with jury and general warrants in 2007 and was appointed an alternate Environment Court judge to assist with Resource Management Act prosecutions in the District Court a year later. She was appointed a full‑time Environment Court judge in Auckland in 2009.
Meanwhile, Isac graduated with a Bachelor of the Arts degree and later an honours law degree from the University of Canterbury in 1994. He commenced practice as a solicitor with Chapman Tripp in Wellington. Isac then spent several years as a Crown Prosecutor with Preston Russell in Invercargill, before travelling to the UK in 1998, where he completed a Bachelor of Civil Law at the University of Oxford.
Isac returned to New Zealand in 2001 and spent three years as a lecturer in law at the University of Canterbury, before joining Fitzherbert Rowe in Palmerston North as a litigation partner in 2004.
Isac joined the partnership of Gibson Sheat in Wellington in 2013, before moving to the bar, where he practised in public, commercial, and criminal litigation. He was appointed Queen’s Counsel in 2018.
