A gifted young Auckland lawyer who worked on high-profile criminal appeals involving Mark Lundy and Gail Maney has been named as the victim of a Coromandel beach drowning.
Jack Oliver-Hood was pulled from the water at Hāhei Beach on Monday. Rescuers performed CPR but he could not be resuscitated and died at the scene.
Today, colleagues have spoken of their admiration for the 37-year-old barrister, advocate and academic, who is being described as a “shining star” of the profession.
“He will have a lot of people who want to farewell him because he was loved by a lot of people,” Auckland University Law School professor Scott Optican told the Herald.
“He was one of my best students and closest friends, and somebody whose loss is felt so deeply by me and so many other people.”
Oliver-Hood was one of the Auckland Law School’s top scholars, winning several academic awards and mooting competitions.
After graduating in 2012, he clerked for the High Court at Auckland and worked at both Shortland and Bankside Chambers.
He had also lectured in evidence law at the Law School and Auckland University of Technology, as well as co-authoring the Mahoney on Evidence law text with Optican and several other writers.
Oliver-Hood studied for his masters at Columbia University Law School in 2019 and 2020, completing the degree at home after Covid disruptions.
Optican said Oliver-Hood’s professional work straddled intellectual property, political, constitutional and criminal appellant law.
He said Oliver-Hood had worked on the Lundy appeal and helped obtain an acquittal for Maney, who was wrongly imprisoned for 16 years, after her defence team demonstrated a miscarriage of justice.
He also represented Lego in a high-profile intellectual property dispute with Zuru, and represented Te Pāti Māori in the party’s constitutional and political legal disputes.
In 2024, he appeared before the Supreme Court in a complex Copyright Act case.
Optican said Oliver-Hood was a strong advocate in a diverse number of fields and a rare combination of a lawyer and an academic.
He had a brilliant mind and incredible future. His tragic passing would reverberate through the legal profession.
“I had amazing respect for him as a working practitioner. I have absolutely no doubt that he would have had an absolutely superb career at the bar and who knows where else he would have gone.
“It’s such a tragic loss – not only at a personal level but also for the profession.
“The legal profession has lost one of its brightest lights and someone who was going to be a shining star in the future.”
Oliver-Hood’s father, Doug Hood, was a renowned New Zealand music pioneer and promoter who helped bring The Big Day Out festival to New Zealand. He died in 2024.
Lawyer and lecturer Alex Allen-Franks was a close friend and colleague of Oliver-Hood. The pair worked together in the High Court at Auckland and for Andrew Brown, KC.
“Honestly, I can’t believe it. He was a very special person.”
She said Oliver-Hood loved going to Hāhei for holidays. It’s understood he was with his long-term partner on the day he died.
Allen-Franks said her friend loved his bull terrier, Moe, and enjoyed Bob Dylan. He had a wonderful mind and his death was a huge loss to the profession, she said.
“It is such a tragedy because he was such a smart guy and so kind. He had already done a lot but he was going to do so much more.”
Colleague Julie-Anne Kincade, KC, worked with Oliver-Hood on the Maney appeal.
“It was a career highlight for us both on the day that we received the decision. We were all together with Gail, Tim McKinnel and Katya Paquin. I will never forget that and I will never forget Jack.
“He is a huge loss to us all. Most of all his family of course – but also to the law, to which he gave so much and he had so much left to give.”
Andrew Brown, KC, said he had worked with Oliver-Hood since 2016.
The impressive young lawyer had attended Columbia on a scholarship and finished in the top 2%, earning him a Kent Prize.
Finishing his master’s degree remotely during the pandemic was a “remarkable achievement”, Brown said.
“He really was outstanding. He’s one of the three best young lawyers I’ve ever worked with in the whole of my legal career of 40 years.
“It’s just such a tragedy. I think this guy would have been a real leader in the legal profession. In a very short time, he would have easily become a King’s Counsel, so it’s with such a grieving heart that I’m talking to you.”
Police said the death had been referred to the coroner.
Lane Nichols is Auckland desk editor for the New Zealand Herald with more than 20 years’ experience in the industry.
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