New Crown Solicitor for Manukau, Natalie Walker. Picture / Jason Oxenham.
Even the judges are excited about Manukau's new Crown Solicitor.
"It's a really great time for South Auckland," says Natalie Walker, who by August will become responsible for all major prosecutions in the area for the next 10 years.
Her appointment means Manukau will once again have lawyers based in the community they're prosecuting.
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"The police are excited, the public defence service are excited, the defence bar are excited, we are excited," Walker told the Herald on Monday, her first day in the role.
Walker's partnership, Kayes Fletcher Walker, is now set to grow from a four-person office to a medium sized law firm of about 30 as it takes over Manukau's prosecutions.
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More lawyers than they can take have applied and Walker says the goal is to build a firm which reflects the region's diverse population.
"Not all of them will live in South Auckland - we don't - but we're conscious of the need to try to have a number of staff that do know the community," Walker says.
"We are committed to bringing on, first and foremost, the best Maori and Pacific Island graduates from law school." Walker also says her door is open to the former Meredith Connell partners who unsuccessfully challenged that firm for the rest of Auckland's prosecution work.
Kayes Fletcher Walker will also receive support from a panel of senior barristers, expected to include top Queen's Counsel.
That will likely allay any naysayers over Walker's appointment ahead of Phil Hamlin, a renowned child abuse case prosecutor who also put himself forward for the position.
Walker, a former Meredith Connell criminal partner, was conscious that she was outgunned on experience during the race to become Crown Solicitor. However, she says her firm's "relative youth" could have worked in its favour.
"Manukau's a district with a new court and relatively new public defenders out there and a young population and a police district that is renowned for being innovative and progressive, and I think a younger firm with the kind of vision we've got probably fits nicely with that."
Although Manukau has its own identity, Walker says the crime going through its courts is very similar to the rest of the city.
There is a "heavy diet" of sexual crime, of serious violence, of gang crime and youth offending - and it all has to be prosecuted for less money since the change from hourly billing rates to a bulk funding regime.
That shift was criticised when it came into force in 2013, amid fears it could mean more plea bargaining.
While accepting there could now be a perceived incentive to try wrap matters, Walker says her firm "wasn't open for business on early resolution just to achieve a disposal" of a case.
That being so, Walker says early resolution is a very good thing - which saves victims the trauma of a trial and reduces delays in the court system - as long it is met with a principled approach.
And despite tighter funding, her firm plans to grow by bidding for contestable work from Crown departments. This work, for organisations such as Worksafe NZ, pays fees over and above what a Crown Solicitor firm receives for prosecutions.
"You can only attract the best staff, offer them the best wages or the best training opportunities if you've got money to do that," Walker says.
"So absolutely we intend to grow, but we plan to do it at a slow place.
"First of all we want to show that we can do the core Crown work to the highest standard. Once we've demonstrated that we then want to be able to go out and seek more contestable work."
• Age: 40
• Grew up on a farm west of Auckland
• Studied law in Auckland and London
• Worked at Meredith Connell as a prosecutor for 13 years
• Is the new Crown Solicitor for Manukau
• Major prosecutions around New Zealand are handled by 16 Crown Solicitors, who are responsible for the work in their region.
• They share funding of about $33 million a year, based on the proportion of the country's prosecutions they complete.
• Because of the city's size, prosecution work in Auckland was divided in two after then-Crown Solicitor Simon Moore was appointed a High Court judge.
• There are now new Crown Solicitors in the Auckland area -
Natalie Walker in Manukau and Meredith Connell's Brian Dickey in Auckland.
Volumes were lighter as investors are thinking more about the summer holidays.