Legal Research in Aotearoa New Zealand, 2nd edition

Mary-Rose Russell (BBibl (South Africa); LLB(Hons) (Cant); LLB (Zimbabwe); LLM (Auck)) is an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Waikato Te Whare Wānanga o Waikato, she has had extensive legal experience having practised as a Barrister and Solicitor in New Zealand and being admitted as an Advocate in Zimbabwe. Since 1990 she has taught, at various times, at the University of Auckland, Auckland University of Technology and the University of Waikato. She also is a qualified law librarian and has managed law libraries at the University of Pretoria and the University of Auckland. Her main research interests have been in the areas of public law and legal education. She is the co-author of Aotearoa New Zealand Law Foundations and Method (3rd ed) and co-editor of The Supreme Court of New Zealand 2004-2013.

Allan Beever (BA, MA, PhD (Auck); MSL (Toronto)) is a Professor of Law at the Auckland University of Technology. A well-known tort lawyer and theorist of private law, he has also written or taught in the areas of contract law, the law of unjust enrichment, philosophy of law, comparative law and the philosophy of Immanuel Kant. He is the author of eight books as well as numerous articles and chapters and has won a number of significant awards for his research, including a Major Research fellowship from the Leverhulme Trust and a von Humboldt Research Fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. He has previously held positions at the Universities of South Australia, Ottawa, Southampton, Durham, and Auckland and at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law.

Natalie Baird (LLB (Hons) (Cant), BA (Cant), LLM (Columbia), PG Cert Tertiary Teaching (Cant)) is a Professor at Te Kaupeka Ture | Faculty of Law at Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha | University of Canterbury. Her research interests lie in the areas of international human rights, international disaster law, refugee law and Pacific legal studies. She is particularly interested in the domestic application of international human rights norms in New Zealand and the wider Pacific region. Natalie is a part-time member of New Zealand’s Human Rights Review Tribunal.

Becky Carlson (LLB, BA, LLM (International Law and Politics) (Cant)) is a PhD student at the University of Canterbury. Her research focus is international law on climate change, the environment and law of the sea. She also has research experience in law in the context of disasters.

John Hopkins (BA (Hons) (Strath); PhD (Sheff); PGCert (Cant)) is a Professor of Law in the Faculty of Law | Te Kaupeka Ture at the University of Canterbury | Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha and Director of the LEAD Institute of Law Emergencies and Disasters. He researches and teaching is primarily in the fields of Comparative, Public and International law with a focus on law in the context of disasters. He is a member of the International Academy of Comparative Law and a former NZ Fulbright scholar.

Linda Te Aho, MNZM, is of Waikato, Ngāti Korokī Kahukura and Ngāti Mahuta descent and is an Associate Professor in Te Piringa, Faculty of Law, Waikato University. Linda holds a number of iwi governance positions for Waikato-Tainui and Ngāti Koroki Kahukura entities and was awarded the Judith Binney Research Fellowship in 2023 to research and publish history and mātauranga relating to Ngāti Koroki Kahukura. Linda was appointed as a pou tikanga in relation to the Waitangi Tribunal’s Constitutional Kaupapa Inquiry, and contributed a chapter to the book that celebrates the 50th Anniversary of the Tribunal. Her chapter is entitled, “Awa: Ngā wai honohono – the rivers that join us”.

Professor Leilani Tuala-Warren is the current Dean of Te Piringa Faculty of Law at the University of Waikato and is the first Dean of Law of Pacific descent in Aotearoa and the first Pacific woman to be a Professor of Law in Aotearoa. Her career has spanned various roles, including being the second woman appointed to the Supreme Court of Samoa in 2016, a role she held until 2023. In 2022, she was awarded the University of Waikato’s Distinguished Alumni Award. She was appointed a Member of the Waitangi Tribunal in January 2025.

Unaisi Oeranalagi Narawa is a Lecturer in Law at Te Piringa Faculty of Law, University of Waikato. Unaisi holds an LLB, LLM and several postgraduate certificates in law and tertiary teaching. She completed her PhD at the University of Queensland under a prestigious University of Queensland scholarship. Unaisi has more than a decade of academic teaching experience as a former Assistant Lecturer and Consultant Lecturer with the University of the South Pacific and has also held positions in Nauru as Senior Government Lawyer (Legislative Drafting) for the Department of Justice & Border Control, and Legislative Counsel for the Parliament of Nauru.

Amanda Turnbull is a Senior Lecturer in Law at Te Piringa Faculty of Law, School of Law, Politics & Philosophy and a Research Associate with Te Puna Haumaru, New Zealand Institute for Security & Crime Science at the University of Waikato. Her research focuses on law and technology, specifically how we are adapting to the “Algorithmic Turn” in society, wherein algorithms are becoming the main mediator through which power is carried out. Her teaching interests include law and technology, transnational law, contracts, feminism and law, and legal theory. Amanda is a cross-disciplinary scholar committed to fostering dynamic thinking in our increasingly complex and globalized world where legal problems are becoming much more than problems about law. She holds a PhD (Osgoode), MA (Carleton), a BA (Ottawa), an ARCT, and a Dip AA. She is also a Fellow of the European Law Institute.

Stephanie Colling (LLB (Hons) (Auck)) is currently a Research Manager at an Auckland law firm. She was the Law Library Manager at the Davis Law Library, University of Auckland from 2009- 2018, where she also taught academic courses in legal research. Stephanie was the President of the New Zealand Law Librarians Association (NZLLA) from 2016 to 2018.Her involvement with law librarianship has spanned 20 plus years and has included roles in academic libraries, private law firms and local government libraries.

Sara Roberts (BA (Cant); DipLibr (Victoria)) has worked at the University of Canterbury since 2007 as a law subject librarian and more recently as the Manager, Teaching and Learning Services in the Library.  She works closely with the subject specialists to offer information literacy and research skills teaching programmes to support student success.