North American Law Schools Alumni Dinner

Friday night, I had the privilege of attending an alumni dinner at the prestigious Northern Club. I was invited by Professor Ken Palmer, a member of the law faculty at the Uni and also a member of the Remuera Rotary Club. He also is a Harvard Law School alum, having received his LLM degree there some years back. As one of that prestigious group, Ken receives invitations to dinners such as the one we attended last night.

The dinner, though organized by two other Harvard LLMs, was open to members of the New Zealand legal community who had received legal education at any university in North America. It turns out I was something of a rarity in this group. I found myself in a room full of kiwis, who had received their masters degrees in America or Canada; the idea of a Harvard educated lawyer coming to New Zealand for anLLM caused a bit of confusion. I was even asked to stand up and introduce myself, and share a bit about my studies and research!

(Oddly enough, I was substantially less nervous addressing a room of lawyers and judges in formal wear than I was earlier this week, when I had to give a presentation to a 12-Rotarian audience with an audibly shaking voice!)

The highlight of the evening, though, was the post-dinner speaker, Justice Joseph Williams. Justice Williams was recently appointed to the High Court (which, I feel compelled to clarify, is NOT the highest court in New Zealand), but prior to his appointment was a Chairperson of theWaitangi Tribunal and Chief Judge of the Maori Land Court - the two judicial/quasi-judicial bodies of most significance for my research. He received hisLLM degree in British Colombia, with a focus on First Nations issues, and it turns out that the field of indigenous rights is his passion. After his address, I had the opportunity to chat with Justice Williams for a few minutes about some of his history, and about what I am researching. I ended the evening with his email address and the promise of an engaging academic discourse on the very topics I'm studying! "It's my favorite thing to talk about," he told me. "Just don't quote me - pretend they're your own ideas!"

Actually, Justice Williams was not the only person who offered to share knowledge and connections with me. I now have a small stack of business cards to follow up on, and am pretty excited about these new resources. I was able to reminisce about Cambridge with quite a few HarvardLLMs, and I also befriended a couple of young lawyers, both of whom are headed to New York in the fall to begin their own LLMs - but meanwhile, I might even manage to broaden my social circle a bit! Overall, it was a great evening, and I'm very grateful for Ken for inviting me along - and it was nice to step out of my "student" shoes for an evening and feel like, well, an adult.

But now I've got to get some studying done before I go watch the new X-Men movie with a friend!