President
Justice Hammond graduated from the University of Auckland and the University of Illinois. He was a partner in the Hamilton law firm of Tompkins Wake & Co. He was then a Professor of Law in American and Canadian Universities, and Chairman of a Canadian law reform agency, before becoming a Professor of Law and Dean of Law at the University of Auckland. He has been a Visiting Professor of Law at Cornell, the Law Foundation Professor in Canada, and the Robert S Campbell Fellow at Magdalen College, Oxford. He is the author of numerous published articles and books. He was appointed a Judge of the High Court in 1992 and to the Court of Appeal in January 2004.
Professor John Burrows was appointed as a Law Commissioner for a term of 5 years from February 2007. Before this John Burrows was a Professor of Law at the University of Canterbury from 1974. He has a PhD (London) 1966 and an LLM (Canterbury) 1964. He is a Life Member of Clare Hall Cambridge and Herbert Smith Visitor to The Faculty of Law, Cambridge in 2006. Prof Burrows is author or co-author of books on Statute Law, Media Law and Contract Law in New Zealand and has contributed to books on Tort Law and Commercial Law. He has written various journal articles. From 1980-1986 Prof Burrows was Head of Department and Dean of The Faculty of Law, University of Canterbury. From 1992-1998 he was Pro-Vice-Chancellor University of Canterbury and from 1999-2000 he was Deputy Vice-Chancellor University of Canterbury. He has chaired many central university committees and been a member of various national committees on tertiary education. He has been a Barrister of the High Court of New Zealand specialising in opinion work, and was appointed a Queens Counsel in 2005. He is also appointed Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand.
While at the University of Canterbury he lectured in Media Law, Contract and Legislation. He is a current member of the New Zealand Legislation Advisory Committee, and a Trustee for the New Zealand Law Foundation, and was formerly a member of the Contracts and Commercial Law Reform Committee. He has been involved in continuing education for the legal and journalism professions.
Geoff McLay taught at Victoria University’s Faculty of Law since completing an LLM at the University of Michigan in 1994. He was appointed a Professor with effect from 1 January 2011. He is currently on leave from the University during his term at the Law Commission.
Geoff also has a BA and LLB (Hons) (First Class) from Victoria University of Wellington ,and was awarded an SJD from the University of Michigan for a thesis on the history of Crown liability in 2008. In 2006 he was a visiting Professor at the University of Iowa College of Law teaching torts and advanced torts and product liability. He has also taught advanced at the University of Western Ontario (Winter 2002).
At Victoria Geoff has taught a wide range of undergraduate and graduate courses including torts, advanced torts, intellectual property, competition (antitrust) law, comparative constitutional law, and ethics. He has published or edited a wide range of article, papers and books.
Commissioners
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