New Dean of Te Kaupeka Tātai Ture - Faculty of Law

Associate Professor Bridgette Toy-Cronin will serve as the new Dean of Otago’s Te Kaupeka Tātai Ture - Faculty of Law from the start of April. She says it is an honour to lead the Law Faculty she has long admired.

“When I was in the profession, the Otago graduates seemed very confident and secure in their legal knowledge and the Otago alumni had a great network, so I admired the Otago degree from afar,” Bridgette says.

Bridgette joined the Faculty in 2016 after completing an Otago PhD, and has gained an understanding of what gives our graduates these attributes.

“I think Otago offers a unique experience as far as a nurturing environment and close relationships between the Faculty and students. It’s a smaller law school so students get a really good quality of education and a lot of time with Faculty and form close relationships as a group.”

“Our alumni are very loyal to the institution and each other. The judiciary who are graduates make an effort to come down here and keep those links with students and the Faculty, which is really great.”

As Dean, Bridgette will continue to foster these relationships as well as the strong ‘town and gown’ connections with the wider legal profession.

“Being connected to the Otago and national profession is an important part of delivering legal education. It’s very much a symbiotic relationship. It gives students the opportunity to make links and see what it is like, and for the profession to share with us what they want from graduates. We also need to make sure our research reaches the profession and that we understand what the pressing issues are.”

Bridgette says it’s an interesting time to come into the role, with both challenges and opportunities ahead.

This is the first year Tikanga Law is a curriculum requirement - something Otago is already underway with.

Generative AI technologies create challenges for legal education, but Bridgette says they also present interesting opportunities for law students to think creatively about how we can harness those technologies to better deliver legal services.

Her own career has been a mix of academic and professional. After undergraduate studies in law and politics at the University of Auckland, Bridgette completed a Master of Law from Harvard. She worked in human rights including as an intern at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and on the Cambodian Defenders Project on Women's Rights. She then worked as a commercial litigation lawyer before turning to doctoral study.

All these experiences led her to focus on improving access to the civil justice system, which has remained central in her subsequent academic research.

Bridgette now serves as Director of the Civil Justice Centre, which has recently launched the National Civil Justice Observatory, a national monitoring body for civil justice in New Zealand. She is also Co-Director of the Otago Centre for Law and Society, an interdisciplinary centre dedicated to supporting the social scientific and humanistic study of law across the University. She also has two years of Marsden funding remaining for her research project on non-law advocates in the justice system.

Bridgette and her family have relocated from Hamilton for this role. She says a big attraction is her “wonderful colleagues and our great students”. She takes over from current Dean, Professor Shelley Griffiths, at the start of April.

“Shelley has been an excellent leader providing care for the staff and students and steady stewardship through the pandemic and the difficult financial times for the University.

“It is a privilege to be appointed to lead Otago Law. I am excited to build on the strong foundations laid by our past leaders and to continue to develop our Faculty as an exceptional place to work and study”.