Claire Paterson
Partner
Claire prosecutes serious crime in District Court and High Court jury trials, as well as regulatory offending in the District Court on behalf of agencies including the Real Estate Authority, Maritime New Zealand, Commerce Commission, New Zealand Transport Agency, and Housing New Zealand.
Claire has particular expertise acting in professional disciplinary proceedings. She regularly acts for the New Zealand Law Society in prosecutions before the Lawyers and Conveyancers Disciplinary Tribunal, and on behalf of the Real Estate Authority in proceedings before the Real Estate Agents Disciplinary Tribunal. She also has experience appearing before the Teachers Disciplinary Tribunal on behalf of the Education Council.
In the civil jurisdiction, Claire has acted for plaintiffs and defendants in proceedings before the District Court and High Court. She has considerable experience acting for Crown entities in specialist tribunals including the Human Rights Review Tribunal, Tenancy Tribunal, and Customs Appeals Authority.
Acted in the prosecution of a Northland-based egg farmer for fraud involving falsely packaging cage eggs as free-range eggs (Commerce Commission v John Garnett).
Acted in a prosecution for failures under the Health and Safety in Employment Act 1992 in relation to a serious-harm incident on board a container ship (Maritime New Zealand v Ports of Auckland Limited).
Acted in a prosecution for multiple counts of sexual offending against three female relatives over a 10-year period (R v William Pa'oo).
LLM, University of Cambridge (United Kingdom)
LLB (Hons)/BA, University of Auckland
