The foundation released over $270,000 in funds
Nine legal professionals will secure support from the Michael and Suzanne Borrin Foundation as the recipients of its 2025 Scholarship and Travel and Learning Awards.
Kelly Mitchell (Ngāti Māhanga) received the Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga Postgraduate Scholarship. Meanwhile, Dave Burnside, Jessica Kirton-Luxford, and Nera Tautau (Malaemalu, Moata’a) received the Te Pae Tawhiti Postgraduate Scholarship.
The Travel and Learning Awards winners were Claire Charters (Ngāti Whakaue, Tūwharetoa, Ngāpuhi, Tainui), Mary Haggie, Ria Holmes (Te Ātiawa ki Whakarongotai, Ngāti Toa Rangatira, Ngāti Raukawa ki te Tonga, Pākehā), Joanna Mossop, and Shay Schlaepfer.
Mitchell, an assistant lecturer in law at Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University of Wellington, has been granted $64,702 to support her pursuit of a law PhD at the University of Victoria, British Columbia. She is an emerging scholar in Māori jurisprudence and constitutional law.
She will conduct research on how Māori legal theory can inform the judiciary’s constitutional role within a Tiriti-consistent legal landscape in Aotearoa New Zealand. This work builds on her master of laws study.
Burnside has received $50,000 for his pursuit of a law PhD at the University of Auckland. He will draw on his personal experience and his professional addiction and recovery work to study how lived experience can initiate and support journeys of criminal desistance and recovery.
Kirton-Luxford has secured $50,000 to study for her master of laws in either the UK or Canada. She will study novel legal tools and frameworks to address climate change, concentrating on the practical implications of the International Court of Justice’s advisory opinion in an Aotearoa New Zealand context. Her particular interest is in how global legal developments can translate into domestic action.
A senior human rights advisor at Te Kāhui Tika Tangata New Zealand Human Rights Commission, Tautau has secured $59,147 to go for her master of human rights law at the University of Melbourne. Her research will concentrate on advancing human rights for Pacific communities in Aotearoa New Zealand, particularly ensuring that human rights frameworks reflect Pacific values and lived experiences.
She has tackled issues involving race relations and the rights of Pacific peoples; moreover, she has pitched in on national and international human rights initiatives.
Charters has received $10,000 to finance her travel to Sápmi, where she will research Sámi governance institutions and evaluate their relevance to Indigenous constitutional arrangements in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Haggie has received $10,000 to head to the UK, where she will identify strategies to tackle the underrepresentation of women as adjudicators in construction disputes. She will determine the relevance of these strategies to New Zealand.
Holmes has secured $10,000 for her travel to Canada, where she will attend an Indigenous Law Research Methodologies intensive to support her work in tikanga Māori and Indigenous legal research approaches.
A professor at Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University of Wellington, Mossop has been granted $8,855 to attend PrepCom3 in New York, supporting her current work on the Agreement on Marine Biodiversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction. She is an expert on the international law of the sea.
Schlaepfer has received $10,000 to study innovative biodiversity laws and engage with key agencies, practitioners and First Nations communities in Australia.
Applicants may still try for the Borrin Foundation’s Justice Fellowship, Women Leaders in Law Fellowship, Community Law Fellowship and Travel and Learning Awards. The window for applications to these closes on 7 April.
The Borrin Foundation receives applications for its postgraduate scholarships every August. It accepts applications for the Travel and Learning Awards every March and August.
