Faculty of Law celebrates 20 years

When Waikato University announced it planned to open a law school 20 years ago, there were plenty of sceptics and financial hurdles to threaten it. But this year, Waikato's Te Piringa Faculty of Law formally celebrated its founding two decades ago by inviting along current and former staff, alumni and friends to a bit of a do.

Te Piringa Faculty of Law chose not to follow the traditional models of the country's four other law schools, all more than 100 years old. Founding Dean Professor Margaret Wilson DCNZM was responsible for a new and innovative model that other universities have subsequently followed. She set about recruiting staff and planning degrees based on an integrated and distinctive curriculum that focussed on professionalism, law in context, biculturalism and the Treaty of Waitangi. "We wanted a law school accessible and relevant to the people of the region, where, based on academic achievement, anybody could enrol - Maori, rural people and women; people who would serve all sectors of the community."

But it nearly didn't happen. With a change in government, and a week before Christmas, the call came through that the government was withdrawing its $10 million establishment fee commitment. "I was tested physically, emotionally and intellectually during that time, but it made my future roles look easy," said Margaret Wilson who went on to be Attorney General and hold several ministerial positions in the Clark-led Labour Government before being appointed Speaker of the House.

Waikato's Vice Chancellor at the time, Professor Wilf Malcolm, said he supported the idea for a law school from the start because he felt Waikato needed to increase its professional programmes. While Auckland University supported a law school at Waikato, other institutions and university bodies did not, and it was a hard-fought battle to secure the funding. "Then to have it taken away when we already had a thousand applications for 350 places, my immediate reaction was to proceed in what was a difficult situation," said Professor Malcolm. "We called on support from across the university to ensure the school opened the following year."

About 70 people attended the founding celebrations including current Vice-Chancellor Professor Crawford, and Justice Grant Hammond who's had longstanding ties to the region, born and bred in Te Awamutu, but leaving the province to study law in Auckland. When he graduated, he worked in Hamilton at Tomkins Wake law firm then moved into academia, teaching in the United States and Canada before returning to become Dean of Law at Auckland. Justice Hammond, who now sits on the Court of Appeal, said he supported Waikato's proposal from the start. He liked the radical thinking of what Waikato was proposing to teach and felt its programmes would help meet the needs of people who were too frequently under-represented. "And I see Harvard revised its curriculum degree structure a short time ago, and it appears not dissimilar to Waikato's of 20 years ago."

Judge Stephanie Milroy completed her Masters in Law at Waikato, taught in the school and developed a number of courses, one of them being health law. Importantly, she worked on the school's bicultural legal education and curriculum. "People described us as visionary, brave...and foolhardy. We had our guiding principles but we also had to show everyone that we were a proper law school, not just one for Maori and feminists. But we also wanted it to be the Maori Law School of choice and a number of initiatives we implemented enabled us to do that." Stephanie Milroy is now a judge for the Maori Land Court and earlier this year was appointed Deputy Chair of the Waitangi Tribunal.

Te Piringa Faculty of Law's current Dean is Professor Brad Morse who came from the largest law school in Canada to head New Zealand's smallest. His goal is to make Te Piringa Faculty of Law the best in the country with a global reputation for excellence in key fields. "One of the major immediate challenges," said Professor Morse, "is to finally undo the continuing effects of the loss of the original $10 million government commitment from 20 years ago, which was to help fund construction of a proper law school building. The Faculty of Law has obviously long since outgrown the ‘temporary premises' put up in a rush in 1990 to meet the arriving students." Through new staff, additional offerings, increased ties with bench and bar, an enhanced financial position, new research centres under development, and renamed as the Te Piringa Faculty of Law, the future looks very bright indeed, says the Dean.

Te Piringa Faculty of Law now has over 600 full time equivalent students in LLB and postgraduate programmes, and also offers a Diploma in Law at Tauranga. Its graduates hold positions in law firms, in government and in corporations all over the country, as well as overseas. Many alumni work for iwi and hapu, some are judges and others are leaders or leaders-in-waiting in their communities.