Crime and Justice
Tagata Pasifika

Meet Tiana Epati, the first Pasifika leader of the New Zealand Law Society

June 24, 2019

The Gisborne 43-year-old is also the youngest person to lead the society.

For the first time, the New Zealand Law Society has a Pacific leader at the reigns.

Samoan lawyer Tiana Epati is the society's newest elected president, and its youngest.

A partner at Gisborne's Rishworth Wall and Mathieson, her father A'e'au Semi Epati was New Zealand's first Pacific judge, sworn in in 2002.

Epati says she sees herself as someone who straddles two generations of the law.

"When I was running for president they did a snapshot of the profession, and the average age of a lawyer was 42, and that was me, I was bang on 42," she told Tagata Pasifika.

"So I see myself as someone who sits between two different generations of the profession, 50 per cent of those of the generation are millennials and the other are not and there's been, I think, there was a feeling of that disconnection between two generations of people who come from a different cultural backgrounds, gender, large centres versus small provincial areas."

She plans to make her mark on the justice system, with only 2.6 per cent of New Zealand's lawyers of Pacific heritage.

"I have a different world view and perspectives for sure, I can see things through a different lens," she said.

"If I'm looking at something I'll often ask, 'what's the Māori and Pasifika view on this, have we gotten that view?'"

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