Annual CBA Conference - 5 & 6 August 2023

This year's Criminal Bar Association Conference will be held in Auckland over the weekend of 5 and 6 August 2023.  Attendance at the full conference fulfils 10 CPD hours - the full annual requirement.

This year our keynote speaker is Judge Nancy Gertner.  Judge Nancy Gertner is a graduate of Barnard College and Yale Law School where she was an editor on The Yale Law Journal. She received her M.A. in Political Science at Yale University. She has been an instructor at Yale Law School, teaching sentencing and comparative sentencing institutions, since 1998. She was appointed to the bench in 1994 by President Clinton. She has written and spoken widely on various legal issues and has appeared as a keynote speaker, panelist or lecturer concerning civil rights, civil liberties, employment, criminal justice and procedural issues, throughout the U.S., Europe and Asia. Her autobiography, In Defense of Women: Memoirs of an Unrepentant Advocate, was released on April 26, 2011. Her book, The Law of Juries, co-authored with attorney Judith Mizner, was published in 1997 and updated in 2010. She has published articles, and chapters on sentencing, discrimination, and forensic evidence, women’s rights, and the jury system. In September of 2011, Judge Gertner retired from the federal bench and became part of the faculty of the Harvard Law School teaching a number of subjects including criminal law, criminal procedure, forensic science and sentencing, as well as continuing to teach and write about women’s issues around the world.

The speakers for this years conference include:

• Judge Nancy Gertner – keynote speaker 
• Appellate Judges Panel - Chief Justice Dame Helen Winkelmann, Justice Cooper, Justice Thomas 
• District Court Judges Panel 
• Scott Optican – Evidence Law Update 
• Panel session facilitated by Fiona Guy Kidd KC and Nick Chisnall KC and involving Downs J on counter-intuitive evidence and Christopher Stevenson on exclusion of confession evidence
• Forensic Group – horror show 
• Dr Ian de Terte and Yvette Tinsley – the potentially traumatic nature of legal work and how to combat it.
• Professor Joseph Boden – Lessons for Criminal Lawyers from the Christchurch Health and Development Study

Conference Registration

Conference registrations open at the University of Auckland School of Business in the Owen G Glenn Building, 12 Grafton Road, Auckland at 8.00am on Saturday 5 August 2023.

We respectfully ask that you be seated in the Fisher and Paykel Auditorium by 8.30am.  A formal karakia waiata will commence at 8.30am.  Please note that the doors to the auditorium will be closed until the end of that formality.

Below are documents for conference attendees:

Conference Programme
CPD Form 
Feedback Form

Conference Dinner

The Conference Dinner will be held at the Pullman Hotel, Corner Waterloo Quadrant and Princes Street, Auckland.

Pre-dinner drinks and canapés commence at 7pm.  Guests are asked to move into the dining area at 7.30pm and be seated. Our dinner speaker this year is Judge Nancy Gertner. 

The dress code for the dinner is black tie.  

Student Moot – Friday 4 August, 5.00pm

The CBA is seeking to build links with students in the law schools. One reason for this is to provide a pathway into the criminal branch of the profession. As such, the CBA has launched a national moot competition which has an innovation in that it uses an actual case that is due to be argued before the Supreme Court. This year, we are using SG Reference (No 1 of 2023), R v Darling, the question for the Supreme Court being whether the Court of Appeal was correct to conclude that the acquittal of his co-defendant at trial meant that Mr Darling had pleaded guilty to the offence of aggravated robbery when that offence was not made out. The semi-finals and then the final will take place immediately after the Special General Meeting, and so they are expected to start at 5pm on Friday, 4 August 2023 at the offices of Meredith Connell, 8 Hardinge Street, Auckland CBD. For more information, or if you want to be involved in liaising with the student branches of the CBA as we develop this initiate, please contact Kris Gledhill, kris.gledhill@aut.ac.nz.

Pre-Conference Social Gathering - Friday 4 August, 5.30pm

We invite all conference attendees to meet at the Pullman Hotel from 5.30pm for a pre-conference get together.  Your hosts will shout you your first drink. 

Pricing

All pricing below includes GST