There are new judges appointed every year. Usually these judges and their partners have a brief ‘induction’ from the Chief District Court Judge in Wellington. Covid delayed this process and so some 11 judges from 2020 and 2021 and their partners participated in a conjoint induction in Wellington over the week of the 16–18 January 2022.
L to R: Andy Nicholls, Kathryn Maxwell, Terry Singh, Taryn Bayley, David Clark, Maria Pecotic, Paul Shearer, Jacqueline Blake, Brett Crowley, Traicee McKenzie, Martin Treadwell
JANZ took the opportunity to host an after-work gathering of judicial officers from the Wellington region, across all benches, to meet the ‘new’ judges. Held at the Wellington Club, the event was kindly supported by Lifetime who manage both our judicial insurance and superannuation fund. We had a good turnout including some retired judges. The Hon Laurie Greig, at a spritely 93, was very pleased to meet our youngest judge, Judge Terry Singh.
Laurie was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, and was educated at George Watson's College. He moved to Dunedin, New Zealand with his family as a teenager in 1946. He studied law at the University of Otago, then worked for Crown solicitors for five years before joining Bell Gully as a commercial lawyer. He was appointed as a judge of the High Court of New Zealand in 1979. He retired from the bench in May 1996.
After graduating from the University of Waikato (LLB) and the University of Queensland (LLM), Terry’s legal career began in 1996 in Northland then he became a senior prosecutor with NZ Police in 2004, and after that spent time with Crown Law and Inland Revenue in Wellington. In 2011 he joined the Public Defence Service based in Hamilton. He has also lectured at the University of Waikato in criminal law and the law of evidence.
Terry, Greg Hikaka, Greg Davis, and I share a special bond. Not only are we all appointed from Northland but we also, at different times, worked in the same firm, Palmer and Macauley. We all sat behind the same desk on the same chair, in the same room and cut our teeth at the Kaikohe bar!
I sense a reunion looming.