Solicitor

I'm from the East Coast, so I was born in Gisborne but on both sides my dad's from Ruatoria and mum's from Hicks Bay so right along the Cape.

I'm a lawyer at Community Law Wellington and Hutt Valley. I work particularly with Māori clients. At Community Law we give free legal advice. We don't get our money from our clients, which means a lot of clients, a lot of people who wouldn't otherwise be able to afford legal assistance or who have real issues, would get lost in the system.

Community Law fills that gap. We do get to see people, I get to help people daily with wrongs that they're facing.

I really value the ability to talk with people. The clients that we see are real people. I have to go "OK, there's a huge problem here but where can I be useful? Where can I help with the skills and the service that I can give and extracting the legal issue?" I find that really, there's one part that is interesting but the second part is it can make a real difference in this person's life that I'm talking to.

It's about people feeling like they are heard and valuable as well and that's what I get to do in my job daily and I feel really privileged for that.

Unfortunately Māori are unfairly and disproportionately represented in a lot of the statistics but we are not reflected in the profession and it makes a difference. That's why I'm aware it makes a difference. I don't know all the law, but I can be a gateway for some Māori clients who find that they will open up more – they will tell me more because I'm Māori.

I wasn't quite sure how to go to university. It's not something that was in my family but I knew I wanted to go, but it seems silly now, but it's quite true for me. I actually didn't know – it seemed like a really expensive kind of thing and I just thought I'd go work. And I'd been working at a supermarket the whole time I was finishing school and just by chance I actually ended up, I had a regular customer who was a practising manager at the biggest firm in Blenheim, and she asked me what I was doing and I said "I'm actually going to go work at Mitre 10 'cos I can get full-time work there" and she goes "No I'm not" and she gave me a job at a law firm firstly doing admin stuff. That lasted two weeks and then I became a legal secretary. And then I worked doing that for two years and became quite good at it and then I decided I wanted my own secretary actually, which is kind of funny as I'm at Community Law now and I am my own secretary and lawyer, at this stage.

But, if you are thinking about doing law, don't be afraid to kind of find a tuakana or some mentors or people even if you don't have that in your whānau. I was really lucky to have kind of had that in the beginning and I know when I came to university and law school it was a really foreign place for me, and probably for a lot of people, it felt a little bit uncomfortable like, aw, it's a bit fancy, it's just different from my life. So it can make you feel like I don't belong here. But believe that you do, believe that you do belong where you are.

Find some friends at school. I'm really good friends now with a lot of people that I met at law school and I became quite involved with our Māori Law Student's body at Victoria University, Ngā Rangahautira and it really did create a home space for me. And even if you are feeling uncomfortable when you come, you know you're Māori and you may not feel strongly that you're Māori enough, there's no such thing. I've really built strong connections at Law School and in particular with our Māori Law Student's body and I believe it would have been really difficult for me to get through without that support. In a place that felt foreign, you'll be attracted to kind of what looks and feels like you a little bit. And that was my experience.

You might sit in the class one time and in criminal law, I remember quite vividly in second year listening in criminal law about why Māori are over-represented in our criminal system so we fill half the prisons. And being a handful of Māori in that class it felt really uncomfortable, it felt very uncomfortable for me.

There is so much more to law, it's a really solid degree to have. You don't have to practise in law, you don't have to become a lawyer. I'm still questioning whether or not this is what I want to do with my law degree. It's a real solid degree to go into other areas. It can help with working in doing some policy development, whether that's in government or in independent organisations, you learn some really good skills.

Don't think "I'm doing a law degree, I have to be a lawyer." Do the law degree and know that the law degree itself is really valuable. It is useful, but it doesn't limit you to having to work in the legal profession but it does – I think it opens up quite a few doors in different pathways.