UPDATE: Jonathan Eaton was appointed to the High Court Bench in October 2021 – Read Here

Jonathan Eaton continues to provide top level criminal representation from clients recently ranging from Talleys’ Foods, the Christchurch City-owned Citycare to the headline-making murder and kidnapping cases, along with the murder of Amber-Rose Rush by a former Dunedin doctor.

Eaton has provided a leading role as a mentor and has at different times also stepped in to defend judges when criticised by comments over sexual offending sentencing, as vice president of the NZ Bar Association.

“Some of the information circulating in the news media, seeded by politically motivated lobby groups, is either outright wrong or misleading through lack of context. The most obvious example is that the media reporting referred to this as a case of rape when it was not.This sort of misinformation has the potential to seriously undermine the independence of judges and damage the integrity of our justice system,” he said in a statement.

Eaton began his career as a lawyer in 1988 before becoming a barrister in 1998, and was made a Queen’s Counsel (QC) in 2013. He has practised predominantly as a defence lawyer but dabbled in prosecution for three years.

His name is associated with some of the country’s highest-profile cases – the murder prosecutions of Gay Oaks, George Gwaze, Rex Haig and Mark Lundy, and most recently Dunedin doctor Venod Skantha. He was also involved in one of New Zealand’s biggest fraud trials when he represented South Canterbury Finance staff.

Return to the 2021 Power List