Kaikohe's Catherine Cull has been named as Northland's first King's Counsel.
Without casting aspersions on the Mid North, Kaikohe is not the sort of place where a barrister with ambitions of making the highest echelon of her profession would choose to hang her shingle.
Catherine Stafford Cull did just that in 2001, which perhaps makes her achievement in being named a King’s Counsel all the more remarkable.
It was indeed a red letter day on a number of levels when Cull officially “took silk” in being named a KC, Northland’s first. She joins a not especially long list of women who have been granted the title - the first, named in 1988, when English-born Dame Sian Elias, who went on to become Chief Justice, and Dame Lowell Goddard, believed to be the first New Zealander with Māori ancestry to be appointed to the High Court.
More importantly, perhaps, she is the first barrister based in Northland to officially rise to the very peak of her profession.
Ten new King’s Counsel, the first to be named since King Charles III ascended to the throne in September, were appointed last month, continuing a tradition that began in this country in 1907.
New Zealand Law Society president Frazer Barton described the appointment as King’s Counsel as recognition of excellence at the highest level, an honour that many strived for but was hard to achieve.
“Since 1907 there have been many thousands of people practising law in New Zealand, but only 344 have been appointed King’s or Queen’s Counsel.
“We look forward to the opportunity to celebrate the success of the new “silks” and their calls to the inner Bar, and the Law Society congratulates all of them.”
While the location was “obviously” not a prime consideration, just over three-quarters of New Zealand’s Queen’s/King’s Counsel had come from Auckland and Wellington, where two-thirds of New Zealand barristers were based.
Cull is the sole appointee named last month who practices outside Auckland, Wellington or Christchurch. And while her elevation is the source of great pride for her and her family, she also values it as recognition of what can be and is being achieved in Northland.
Her new rank officially recognises excellence in a number of areas including advocacy, leadership of the profession and a commitment to the rule of law by supporting access to justice. The latter is particularly important to her.
Not surprisingly, most of her clients - she works regularly in the courts in Kaikohe, Kaitāia and Whangārei - have legal aid, and she tends to charge her occasional “private” client on a similar scale, with a discount. Legal representation and the preparation and research that lay its foundation do not come cheap, and Cull believes that should not be a barrier to anyone, whatever their circumstances.
That is just one way in which she displays what she describes as a deep sense of fairness, inherited from her parents. Her father, Mervyn Cull, who died almost six years ago, was a distinguished journalist, whose career included more than 30 years as a leader writer for the NZ Herald and stints as a foreign correspondent, who was never one to judge a book by its cover.
“Dad was certainly an influence,” she said.
“He had a strong sense of justice and believed in researching whatever the issue was before forming an opinion. We (younger sister Alex worked for a time as a journalist) grew up with books and researching.”
Cull also has good cause to be grateful to her mum, Ann, who lives in retirement in Kerikeri. She insisted, as much as one can insist on anything with children, that her daughters gain qualifications, and so secure their lifelong independence, although their chosen fields were of no great concern to her, whether it be cutting hair, digging drains or making pleas of mitigation.
Ann takes little credit for her daughter’s qualities and achievements, however: “All I did was make her school lunches.”
Meanwhile, Cull was probably leaning more towards medicine than law as she made her way through secondary school. That changed four weeks into her first term in Year 13 when she decided there wasn’t much point in completing that year so left and enrolled in intermediate law at Auckland University.
Her enthusiasm for debating and public speaking no doubt stood her in good stead, as did a good memory and a work ethic, also inherited from her parents.
She went on to work for the Crown in Auckland and Christchurch, but it was the barrister’s role that appealed most, and in due course she made the move north, to be close to her parents.
Anyone with dreams of following in her footsteps should beware, however.
“As a barrister, I need to be on my mettle every day,” she said.
“I call it being trial-fit. I don’t have holidays - the courts used to close over January but these days they’re away again after the Christmas statutories - and you need a family who understand. When I get home I need at least an hour when everyone just leaves me alone.
“The workload, especially when you’re working in three courts so far apart, is huge. We keep telling the Ministry of Justice that we can’t keep doing it but it isn’t listening.”
Perhaps that was why many women ended their litigation careers prematurely. Chief Justice Dame Helen Winkelmann was one of the few women who was in Catherine’s year at university who was still “in the front line” of legal practice.
“Very few women do (litigation) and even fewer stick it out,” she said.
“We have worked very hard to get to where we are today, and there is a lot more to be done yet, but women are making an increasingly significant contribution to the practice of law in this country, and being named a KC is a continuation of that.
“This (being named a KC) is a big deal for me and my family, but also for women working in law and for Northland. A number of judges have made it clear that they were stunned, and delighted, that this honour is no longer just for city people.
“It is such an honour that no one thought would ever happen in a small town like Kaikohe.”
So, any ambitions of rising to the bench? See what the future brings, but not high on her wish list at the moment. If she was ever to be a judge it would ideally be in Northland.
Is there a book in the offing? Not unless someone writes it for her.
And will her chambers in Kaikohe, once occupied by David Lange, the lawyer who went on to become Prime Minister, ever be home to Cull and Whoever? No.
Well, not so fast. Daughter Isabella (Issy) Joe is 18 months away from completing her Bachelor of Laws degree at Auckland. Like her mother, she is a very good debater and public speaker. Like her mother, she shows all the signs of being driven. Like her mother, she has an exemplary work ethic and talents galore.
Cull and Cull might well be a reality one day.
Whatever happens, she’s not going anywhere.
When Judge Shortland announced it to the Courtroom, one of her clients asked what it meant; she wasn’t leaving Kaikohe was she? The short answer to that is “no.”