Lawyer is left gobsmacked

John Chadwick's services to Maori and the law have been acknowledged with a New Year honour. Photo / Andrew Warner

Rotorua lawyer John Te Manihera Chadwick's many years of service to the law of the land, and its people, has been rewarded with a New Year honour.

Mr Chadwick has been made a member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for his services to Maori and the law.

His citation states he was managing partner of three all-Maori law firms in Rotorua from 1977 as Hingston and Chadwick, Chadwick Bidois in 1985 and Chadwick Law in 2002. He now practices law as a barrister.

In 1987 he was the founding president of the Maori Law Society, served on its executive for many years and is its only life member. In 1987 he founded Te Waiariki Purea Trust to manage "Movin On", a Hillary Commission pilot programme providing recreational services to young people in Rotorua.

He remains chairman of the trust after 28 years.

Descended from Ngati Tuwharetoa, Ngati Wai O Ngati Tama, Ngati Kahungunu, Ngati Whatuiapiti and Ngati Rangikoianake, he was also the founding chairman in 1987 of the second kohanga reo language nest in New Zealand based in Rotorua. In 2013 he was a founding trustee of Te Arawa Whanau Ora Trust.

He is currently chairman of the Rotorua Community Law Centre, having served on its board for 16 years and in 2011 he was a founding trustee of the Community Law Centre national body.

Mr Chadwick has served on a wide range of committees with the New Zealand Law Society, advised Government on Te Ture Whenua Maori Act in 1993, established the Maori seat on the Family Law Section of the New Zealand Law Society and is a mandated negotiator for Ngati Tama in its Waitangi Treaty Claim.

One of his biggest claims to fame is being husband to Rotorua's first female mayor Steve Chadwick, who he married in 1968, and is affectionately known as "the Knight Mare" - "to those who like to enjoy a snigger at my expense, the use of that female of words 'Mayoress' always gets a rise out of me".

"As soon as it [his honour] was announced to me I had to look up what it was. The republican side of me thought that since it was a New Zealand honour, not an imperial one, then it would be fine, but I did feel a little funny about it.

"I was gobsmacked, as I'm used to doing things without any recognition.

"Being a Maori lawyer was not normal and Maori always appreciated having a lawyer visit them at their own homes. Over the years I did a lot of work for Maori pro-bono."

He has been a senior lawyer for the Child in the Family Court jurisdiction in New Zealand and "for more than 30 years I was the only male Maori lawyer operating in that field and I still am something of a rarity being a male in a legal environment dominated by women".

He said he has always had a love for knowledge and was, and still is, a self-confessed book worm.

"I loved school, and schools had libraries.

"I read a lot and I maintain a library - my reading tastes are wide-ranging and eclectic. I also write a lot and I have several projects on the go at any given time with a faint hope that one day I will complete them.

"I have finished writing accounts of overseas trips in recent years ... my ongoing project is a memoir of recollections about my father who started this all off.

"I will always be the researcher and kaitiaki of our whanau and hapu whakapapa database because I have a gift for it and I recognise its importance to my identity, to my mokopuna and to the future generations."