Seasoned lawyers stand for Law Society presidency

The New Zealand Law Society has confirmed that Tiana Epati and Nerissa Barber are standing for election as the next president of the peak body.

Epati and Barber – who are vice-presidents of the Law Society for Central North Island and Wellington, respectively – are current members of the organisation’s board. Nominations close on 23 September.

President Kathryn Beck’s term ends at the Law Society Council’s annual meeting in April 2019. The next president, who will receive guidance and training until commencing the role, will be elected at the council’s mid-term meeting on 24 October.

Epati, who is a partner at Rishworth Wall & Mathieson in Gisborne, was admitted as a barrister and solicitor in 2000, when she finished her BA in philosophy and history and LLB from Auckland University.

She then began her law career as a Crown prosecutor with Meredith Connell, before moving to Luke Cunningham Clere in 2004. She moved to Izard Weston on a one-year contract in 2005, before returning to Luke Cunningham Clere in 2006. She became an associate Crown counsel in Wellington in 2008. She joined Rishworth Wall & Mathieson in 2012.

The Law Society said that Epati was president of the society’s Gisborne branch from 2014 to 2016 and was elected vice-president in April 2016.

Barber is on her third term on the Law Society’s board. An expert in governance, organisational performance, and regulatory systems, she has been chief legal adviser at the Ministry for Culture and Heritage since 2003. Since July, she has also been principal adviser to the State Services Commission.

She has served four terms as Wellington branch president and has been a member of the Law Society’s services delivery group and national law reform committee in human rights. The Law Society also said that she re-established the organisation’s Wellington women in law committee and served as convenor of the legal assistance committee.

The Law Society president is elected by the Law Society Council, a representative from each of the Law Society’s 13 branches, a representative of each of the Law Society’s three sections, and a representative from each of the New Zealand Bar Association and Large Law Firms Group Ltd.