Harriet Krebs' legal career got off to a sound start

From left, Judge Geoff Rea, Justice Stephen Kos, Harriet Krebs and Jonathan Krebs. Photo / Supplied

New barrister Harriet Krebs is no stranger to the battle for justice, and even as a pre-teen played a part in a Napier trial — even though she didn't know it at the time.

It came when dad and Napier barrister Jonathan Krebs had to improvise to overcome courtroom audio shortcomings while acting as Crown prosecutor about 15 years ago.

Taking advantage of a morning break, he nipped home to grab his daughter's CD player so he had the crucial technology to play recordings of an emergency 111 call to the jury.

Now 23, with an LLB and a BSc from Otago University in her kit, and working in Auckland at Blackstone Chambers, where her father also has an office, she would have been at primary school at the time of the unusual early role in a bit of courtroom drama.

"Oh my gosh!" she said. She and one of her sisters had pink CD players when they were young, and she asks: "Was it the Barbie one?"

Jonathan Krebs, who with wife Kathryn and other family were at Friday's Admission to the Bar before president of the Court of Appeal, Justice Stephen Kos, and Hawke's Bay courts fixture Judge Geoff Rea in the High Court in Napier, had seen earlier signs Harriet would also follow the pathway into law as a career.

"She was always ready to offer an opinion at the kitchen table," he said. "And she would defend it, which was the good part."

She recalls an early challenge, arguing for some equality in the household after her sister came home with a larger teddy than she had .

A first XI hockey player at Napier Girls High School, she headed south thinking initially she might study to become a physiotherapist, but switched focus at the last minute, and has barely looked back. Her own study path follows almost the same timeline as that of her father in pursuit of the freedom of Teina Pora, who had been wrongfully convicted of murder in Auckland more than 20 years ago.

She put that mission to good work, helping with some of the research, even if the exam results might have suffered a little about the time she would get up in the middle the night to watch live-streaming of the case's Privy Council hearing in England.

She continued the hockey in Dunedin, captaining the Kings United premier team and sitting on the club's board, but developed a business on the side making and selling cakes — Hattie's Kitchen being spawned after a friend was so impressed by an offering for a special occasion that there was some definite potential for helping the hopeful from Napier in her days through law school.

Adding to the family legal team is sister Victoria, now in her first year doing law at Otago, but youngest sister Madeline "likes animals" and wants to be a vet.