To the best of Catherine Cull’s knowledge, she is believed to be Northland’s first-ever King’s Counsel.
Catherine Cull KC “We did a bit of research and there was a Law Society article in 2014 where they had, up to that date, a map of where Queen’s Counsel had been located,” she says. “There definitely hadn’t been any in Northland, and from my own knowledge there haven’t been any since then.”
This makes the appointment that much more special. “It’s a personal honour to me,” she says, “but it’s also an honour for Northland, to show there’s actually a high standard of advocacy north of Auckland.”
Cull and nine other barristers are the latest to take silk and the first to be appointed since King Charles III ascended the throne in September. Announcing the appointments earlier in November, Attorney-General David Parker said the profession was continuing to contribute well to improving access to justice. “The criteria for appointment recognise that excellence and leadership in the profession should be viewed through a wider, community lens.”
In many ways, community has been at the heart of Cull’s legal career, whether she’s teaching litigation skills, acting as lawyer for child or youth advocate, or practising as a criminal and family barrister.
She has worked at Crown Solicitor firms Meredith Connell and Raymond Donnelly & Co, was appointed to the Christchurch Crown Prosecuting Panel and Christchurch Complaints Referral Panel in 1992, and was an investigating officer of South Island prisons in the Ombudsman’s Office.
Over the past two decades, Cull has lived and worked in Northland, first joining Law North Partners in Kerikeri as a senior solicitor and then returning to the independent Bar. Applying to take silk had been less about herself and more about ensuring the high-quality service in Northland is recognised, she says. “It’s an open-door office, we try to help as many from the community as we can, whether we get paid or not – observing barrister rules, of course. It was very humbling really.”
LawNews spoke with Cull and two other new Silks. The interview has been edited for clarity.
LawNews: Had you always aspired to take silk?
No. My passion is advocacy and litigation but I’ve done a whole lot of work through my career of legal education. [Teaching] litigation skills from about 1988, on and off, I’ve run that course. I’ve given seminars, I’ve taught the very original Public Defence Service office in Auckland litigation skills. It’s been very much trying to make sure the standard of advocacy is high. Those are the two strings to my bow.
LawNews: Should we retain the title of King’s Counsel or revert to “Senior Counsel”?
My heart says it should stay as King’s Counsel just because of the history behind it, the whakapapa and mana that goes with it. For me personally, there have been those who have gone before and there will be those hopefully in the future. That’s really important to me.
LawNews: Which significant matter have you been involved in over the past three years that stands out the most and why?
In my role as youth advocate and lawyer for child, I try to put both hats on and deal with young offenders through a holistic approach, whereby we’re addressing their offending but also their underlying care and protection needs. This particular case, which has suppression and is still going on, is a young man that has high-level sexual offending. We’re still working our way through it, but we’re working our way through a two-year plan of frontending therapy and having a team that we put together, which includes me and psychologists and mentors and the like, so that he will come to sentencing or disposition at the end of that. And we will see what the judge makes of it.
It was a team effort to persuade people like Oranga Tamariki to fund it and to make them an integral member of that team so they can keep the integrity and victim rights front and centre. We have it judicially monitored by the same judge. I’ve done, in the last three years, four or five similar-type approaches and, touch wood, so far so good – no reoffending, the kids have gone from strength to strength. But it has been about ensuring all agencies work together, as opposed to being in silos.
It’s about “why are we here? How did we get here and what can we do?” It’s not to avoid consequence, but it’s about being able to have a very full picture. We do have a court up here, which is called a crossover court, where we have a judge who has a youth court warrant, family court warrant, usually an adult criminal warrant as well, so they can move between jurisdictions. There’s one judge, there’s one lawyer who can move between jurisdictions – that’s me. It’s not a factory line. These are the cases I’m prouder of because they do match the new scientific research coming out that says we need to address care and protection needs to be able to break the cycle of offending.
LawNews: How can barristers continue to improve access to justice?
It’s really about creating good lines of communication and trust with other agencies. No one is any better than anyone else. But we have to work together, we have to communicate. We stick to our own roles, obviously, but we communicate. People have access to me at any time. The door is never closed unless we’ve got a full book. In terms of better access, it’s about availability. It’s not about money to me. For me, it’s about being a member of the community.
Next week: Nick Chisnall KC.
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