She was in-house legal counsel at Te Whatu Ora Health New Zealand for 10 years
Duncan Cotterill has announced the appointment of Simone Tune as a special counsel in its Auckland branch.
She is a specialist medico-legal lawyer who spent the last decade as in-house legal counsel at Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora. She has 25 years of litigation and advisory experience spanning the areas of health law, criminal law, and public law.
Tune has tackled matters related to public health policy. She has conducted more than 50 jury trials for the Crown in the High Court and District Courts.
Specifically, she has assisted clients and appeared on their behalf before the High Court on matters including:
guardianship applications under the Care of Children Act 2004
applications in the High Court for declarations for the lawful withdrawal of life support under the Declaratory Judgments Act 1908
applications for treatment orders under the Protection of Personal and Property Rights Act 1988
cases before the Human Rights Review Tribunal
coronial inquests
Tune has advised on issues relevant to the Code of Health and Disability Services Consumers’ Rights. She has also advised the National Public Health Service on public health and population-level issues.
On behalf of organisations, she has drafted responses to requests for information from the coroner and responses to the coroner’s provisional findings. She has also assisted organisations with drafting responses to complaints with the health and disability commissioner.
Tune has guided organisations in crafting responses to disclosure requests under the Health Information Privacy Code 2020. She has also helped organisations write their policies pertaining to medico-legal issues like informed consent and capacity.
She has acted for health professionals dealing with complaints and disciplinary matters at the instruction of insurers.
