Dean's welcome

Welcome to the Auckland Law School for 2012.

This is an exciting time for The University of Auckland and the Faculty of Law. The Auckland Law School was recently ranked one of the top twenty law schools in the world in the prestigious QS World University Rankings. This was the best result for any department or faculty in the University as well as being the best result of the six New Zealand law schools.

The strength of any law school lies in the calibre of its staff and students, the resources of its library, and the support it gets from the profession and alumni. The Auckland Law School is very fortunate on every score. Our academic staff produces world-class research, we are supported by dedicated administrative staff, and the Davis Law Library has New Zealand’s most extensive collection of legal research materials. It is very competitive to gain entry, so we have an exceptionally well-qualified student body. And we are situated in the heart of the legal precinct of New Zealand’s commercial capital, next to the High Court and the nation’s leading law firms.

My academic colleagues have expertise that spans the range of legal subjects: from business law, tax and family law through to public and private international law, constitutional law, the Treaty of Waitangi and indigenous rights, environmental law and human rights. Many have national and international reputations in their fields. The legal education we seek to offer recognises that law is part of a wider social context: it is not merely a set of rules and procedures created in isolation by legislators, administrators and judges. Our vision of legal education includes equipping students with the capacity to think critically, and to ask questions about legal rules and institutions. Our academic staff participate in advisory roles to government agencies, lawyers, community and business organisations, and are active in the
wider community.

Our students epitomize Auckland’s philosophy of academic rigour coupled with enthusiasm for the law. For the fifth consecutive year, Auckland students have won the national mooting championships and will be representing New Zealand overseas.

I am confident that your time at the Auckland Law School will be an experience you will value for a lifetime. Take full advantage of your opportunity to think, to learn, to explore new ideas and to question orthodoxy. You will find that the staff here are happy to answer questions and to provide academic and other support as needed. Make the most of the chance to join one of the most active and successful law student societies in the country. From the Law Revue to the student competitions, from the social and sports events to the seminars and workshops, there are countless opportunities to participate, to meet other law students, and to forge life-long friendships.

Some of you will elect to study law as part of a conjoint degree programme, in conjunction with arts, commerce, science, property, engineering or health science degrees. In your final two years of the law degree, all of you will have considerable freedom to choose from more than 50 law elective courses in many areas of specialisation. After that, the Faculty’s extensive postgraduate programme entices many of our students back to gain an LLM, which is offered either as a general masters qualification or in one of six specialist areas: commercial, public, environmental, human rights, international law, and litigation and dispute resolution.

I wish you well with your studies and trust that you will find the legal education that we offer at the Auckland Law School to be personally, professionally and intellectually rewarding.

Dr. Andrew Stockley
Dean of Law