In a move that further advances women in the legal profession the Solicitor General Una Jagose KC appointed Alysha McClintock as Auckland’s Crown Solicitor.
She succeeds Brian Dickey KC (left) who joined Bankside Chambers this month after resigning from his appointment in June 2022. The appointment of the new Crown Solicitor occurs on 20 February.
McClintock was one of three Meredith Connell contenders for the role, although it is believed that the final running saw two only in the race for the job.
She is currently deputy chair of MC’s Management Board.
The role will see her lead a team of 150 lawyers at the firm, of whom about 30 work full-time on Crown work.
“It is a great honour to stand in the shoes of Brian Dickey, the Hon Justice Moore and all the previous Auckland Crown Solicitors going back to Sir Vincent Meredith in 1921,” she said in a statement from Meredith Connell following her appointment.
“As Attorney-General David Parker has said, MC is the ‘repository of specialist knowledge that’s accrued from working for the Crown through the generations’, while former Attorney-General Christopher Finlayson KC has said New Zealand is very lucky to have a public-private partnership involving Crown solicitors. We take that trust and those responsibilities very seriously as we work with the Solicitor-General and the Crown Law Office in carrying out our work under the Crown Warrant and the Solicitor-General’s Crown Prosecution Guidelines.
“As Crown Solicitor, I will retain and respect the traditions and integrity of the role, stand alongside and protect the interests of victims of crime and their whānau, while continuing to work towards the Chief Justice’s vision of a legal professional that better reflects contemporary Aotearoa New Zealand.”
“This is a very large and very professional operation and I am delighted to lead a team that includes some of New Zealand’s most distinguished prosecutors, including Brett Tantrum, Robin McCoubrey, Henry Steele, Fiona Culliney, Sam McMullan, Matthew Nathan and Claire Paterson,” Ms McClintock said.
“Combined, the eight of us have conducted thousands of jury trials in the District and High Courts and hundreds of appearances before the Court of Appeal.
“We have a collective responsibility to train and develop the next generation of senior Crown prosecutors who will serve Tāmaki Makaurau.”
Who Is Alysha McClintock?
Born in Timaru she graduated with an LLB from the University of Otago in 1999 and was admitted as a New Zealand Barrister and Solicitor the same year.
She began her prosecution work in Wellington before leaving for overseas in 2002.
She spent the next two and half years in Birmingham and Reading, conducting all manner of criminal and regulatory prosecutions, including for the Birmingham City Council and the Environment Agency.
Reutnring to Meredith Connell, which she joined in 2005, she recently handled the lead role in the prosecution of Eli Epiha, the defendant in the fatal and near fatal shooting of police officers in Auckland in 2020.
Alysha She led at least 100 prosecutions in the Magistrates’ Court and instructed counsel on multiple Crown Court cases on a range of environmental offences.
She became a senior Crown prosecutor in 2007, and led her first High Court trial that same year. She became a partner in 2011 and led her first murder trial in 2014, R v Lavemai [2014] NZHC 797.
She was elected to the Management Board in 2020 and became Deputy Chair in 2021. She takes an active role in delivering MC’s criminal litigation training modules and will continue to do so as Crown Solicitor.
