Changing faces: North Harbour Law

There’s been an injection of new blood into the leadership team at Ōrewa legal firm North Harbour Law, with the appointment of three new owner-director lawyers – Jeanine Mitchell, Mike Hawkins and Will Hunt, all of whom have been with the firm for a number of years.

They join Chris Hunt and Tony Edward, who have been partners at the practice and its predecessor firms for more than 25 years.

Two of the three new directors are locals born and bred – Jeanine was head girl at Ōrewa College and is daughter of local accountant Merv Huxford and Mike grew up in  Whangaparāoa, where his parents were both GPs. Will is Chris Hunt’s son, who lives on the North Shore and is a fifth generation lawyer. All three of them have young families and are committed to a long term future providing legal services on the Coast.

Tony Edward said the appointments were all about succession planning for the practice, enabling North Harbour Law to continue its tradition of providing a comprehensive range of legal services for business and private clients for many years to come.

“We believe these new younger directors have the capability and skills to take the firm to a new level,” he said. “It’s a continuation of everything we’ve been doing, but this brings renewed energy and vigour to the firm.”

North Harbour Law also has two young lawyers, Dani Matich and Emma Turnbull, both of whom joined the firm last year and are also Coast locals. There are also six experienced legal executives, six legal secretaries and a support team.

“The local connections are really quite significant,” Chris Hunt said. “It’s good to have such a depth of legal knowledge, as well as knowledge of and connection to the local community and wider area, in both the directors and the staff.”

North Harbour Law is a general practice that looks after most legal matters, including conveyancing, lending, relationship property, trusts, wills, powers of attorney, business and employment issues. It also handles a substantial amount of commercial property development and subdivision work.