Meredith Connell Welcomes New Crown Solicitor For Auckland

Meredith Connell (MC) has welcomed today’s announcement by the Solicitor-General, Una Jagose KC, that its senior partner Alysha McClintock will be the next Crown Solicitor for Auckland, Te Rōia Matua a Te Karauna ki Tāmaki Makaurau, reconfirming the firm as Office of the Crown Solicitor for Auckland, a role it has held for more than 100 years.

Ms McClintock replaces Brian Dickey, who in June 2022 announced his intention to move on from the role. Mr Dickey commences practice as a barrister at Bankside Chambers on Monday 20 February, the same day Ms McClintock officially takes over as Crown Solicitor.

Ms McClintock is one of Aotearoa New Zealand’s leading prosecutors with over 20 years’ experience prosecuting for the Crown, crown entities and government agencies. She has conducted High Court and District Court trials on all manner of serious crime, including murder, sexual and other serious violent offences and major drug crime over many years. She is currently deputy chair of MC’s Management Board.

“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,” said Ms McClintock.

“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.”

At MC, Ms McClintock will lead a team of nearly 150 lawyers, including nearly 30 who are full-time lawyers on Crown Warrant work. The firm has a total workforce of around 250. It is New Zealand’s largest litigation firm.

“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.”

MC recently announced the appointment of its new CEO, global executive Sophie Schwass, who is returning home to New Zealand to take up the role following her most recent position as Chief Operating Officer for the UK region at Clifford Chance, one of the world’s largest law firms.

“On behalf of MC, I would like to thank Brian Dickey for his extraordinary leadership and for the enormous burden of responsibility he has carried over the last eight years,” Ms McClintock said. “I am very much looking forward to working with Sophie Schwass on the next stage of MC’s development as Office of the Crown Solicitor at Auckland.”
 

Alysha McClintock Biography

Alysha was born in Timaru. Her parents were farmers. She has two older siblings. The family moved to Taranaki when Alysha was young and she attended Whenuakura Primary School, Patea High School, Whanganui Girls' College and Whanganui Collegiate, as one of a small number of women students in 1993 and 1994. 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.

Alysha’s interest in human and corporate behaviour and in navigating outcomes meant the only law she wanted to practice was criminal law. She cut her teeth prosecuting in Wellington. When she left for her OE in 2002, Alysha had lead multiple District Court trials, and appeared routinely in the High Court and all District Courts in the Wellington warrant region on appeals, sentencings and as the regulatory list prosecutor. She juniored on a number of High Court trials including her first murder in 2000, R v Haanstra (High Court Wellington, Neazor J, TNo. 1155/00).

Alysha 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. She led at least 100 prosecutions in the Magistrates' Court and instructed counsel on multiple Crown Court cases on a range of environmental offences.

In early 2005, Alysha moved to Tāmaki Makaurau to join Meredith Connell. 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 has led a number of others since then Alysha became a principal prosecutor in 2017. She is a member of the New Zealand Criminal Bar Association.

Alysha joined MC at a time of expansion in its work for Crown entities. She took over the Commerce Commission relationship management responsibility in 2017. She has held multiple relationship management roles for MC which have provided extensive experience in both leading and managing people and in the oversight and allocation of high volumes of instructions.

Alongside these roles, Alysha has maintained her role as a criminal jury trial prosecutor. She was a Criminal Practice Manager within the firm for two years.

Alysha was elected to the Management Board in 2020 and became Deputy Chair in 2021. Alysha has been an integral part of the recent evolution of MC’s vision and values, commitment to Te Tiriti o Waitangi in the context of He Wakaputanga o te Rangatiratanga o Nu Tireni, new human resources and other policies, IT and security systems, bespoke training programmes, the decision to invest in a full-scale training courtroom, new time and financial management systems, and new premises and brand. She takes an active role in delivering MC’s criminal litigation training modules and will continue to do so as Crown Solicitor.

Alysha has a passion for leadership. She has completed recognised leadership courses and is committed her own personal development, including improving the proficiency of her Te Reo Māori.

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