Renée Riddell-Garner Email & Phone Number

Wellington & Wairarapa, New Zealand

I am an experienced barrister, operating mainly in the public, corporate and regulatory areas.

Wellington & Wairarapa, New Zealand

Specialising in public, corporate and governance law

Wellington, New Zealand

• In this role, I was responsible for leading the legal team and acting as Chief Executive/Registrar on occasion. My work included:
• providing advice on public and corporate law issues
• implementing proper decision-making practices, and guiding the Board through decision-making
• delivering a statutory complaints and discipline service, including a disciplinary tribunal
• drafting secondary legislation
• managing OIA and privacy law service delivery, including dealing with complaints and breaches

Wellington

• Practising law in the parliamentary environment taught me about how the public sector works in a way I doubt I would have learnt anywhere else. My work included:
• providing advice on public and corporate law matters
• working as legal advisor to the Regulations Review Committee (Parliament’s specialist secondary legislation select committee)
• advising select committees
• drafting members’ bills
• managing whole of office projects

Wellington

• I worked in the Māori issues team:
• conducting Tiriti o Waitangi litigation
• working on other Māori issues.

Wellington

• I was in the specialist litigation team (with a 100% litigation success rate) and also provided any other public and corporate legal services required. My work included:
• delivering legal advice on, and services for, a wide range of public law and corporate matters
• litigating health and safety, immigration and employment cases
• advising on responses to official information and privacy requests, and complaints to the Ombudsmen.

Wellington

• This was my first core public sector role. My role was in the Ministry’s public law business group, developing policy with a legal focus. My duties included:
• developing policy in relation to MMP
• drafting ministerial briefings and my first (and only) departmental report
• working with a select committee
• reviewing the Ministry’s Charging Guidelines for Official Information Act 1982 Requests.

Dunedin

I was responsible for leading, advocating for, and delivering services to the student body of Otago University. Two years before I was President, I had been Education and Welfare Vice President, during which time I set up the Student Advocacy Centre, which is still in operation today, now as the Student Support Centre. At the end of my presidency, I took.