Our History
Meredith Connell is a central player on the New Zealand legal scene and has been for fast approaching 100 years.
Today the total Meredith Connell professional group numbers more than 200 people, over two thirds of whom are qualified lawyers, including our 24 Partners who advise on some of the largest and most complex criminal and civil litigation and commercial transactions in New Zealand.
The scale of the firm today would no doubt amaze our founder, Mr Vincent Meredith (later Sir Vincent Meredith), who established the practice in 1922 when he was appointed the first Crown Solicitor for Auckland.
Sir Vincent’s interesting life and background – and strongly self-determined path to success – can still be sensed in the DNA of the firm to this day.
From modest means (he was born in Whangarei in 1877, of Maori and European extraction), Sir Vincent began his working life in the civil service. One day, while walking up Queen Street (the main street of Auckland) he noticed the brass nameplates of many of the legal practitioners bore the names of boys he had been at school with (having gained a scholarship to attend Auckland Grammar).
Eager to match their achievements, he put himself through law school and began practising as a lawyer in Wellington. In due course he returned to Auckland and hung his own nameplate out and thus the path to creating the firm of Meredith Connell was set. His appointment to the Crown Warrant in 1922 to handle indictable prosecutions in the Auckland area cemented the firm’s future direction.
Over the years the firm grew steadily. We carefully and strategically broadened our areas of specialist advice to include commercial and civil litigation work.
In 1953, Robert Meredith was appointed the second Crown Solicitor for Auckland and in 1954 Barrie Connell joined the firm as a partner.
In 1961, Graeme Speight (later Sir Graeme Speight) was appointed the third Crown Solicitor for Auckland and on his appointment to the High Court bench in 1968 David Morris was appointed the fourth Crown Solicitor, a role he held until 1994 when he too was appointed to the High Court bench. In that year the current holder of the Warrant, Simon Eisdell Moore, was appointed the fifth Crown Solicitor for Auckland, thus creating an unbroken lineage of a partner at Meredith Connell being in possession of the Crown Warrant continually since 1922.
To this day, the Warrant held by Simon Moore determines that virtually all trials by jury before any Court in Auckland will be litigated by a Meredith Connell prosecutor.
This has contributed to the firm building formidable litigative strength, experience and depth and, over time, helped us become New Zealand's single largest litigation practice, dealing with high profile and complex commercial and regulatory litigation, as well as our traditional base of criminal prosecutions.
In conjunction with the growth of the litigation practice over the years the firm has built a very busy and successful commercial practice dealing with all aspects of commercial property and corporate law and advising a wide variety of clients on a broad range of transactions.
Despite our size and breadth of expertise, who we are and how we think will probably always reflect something of the incredible qualities of our founding father, Sir Vincent Meredith.
His diligence and determination to succeed, his eventful, colourful life (in his ‘spare time’ he was also the manager of the All Blacks on two overseas tours), and above all his humanistic approach to people and the law, have laid down an ethos which we will always strive to maintain and emulate.