Description
A meandering, scarcely credible, thoroughly unreliable memoir
The moral panic of the Hulme-Parker murder case; the many injustices of the Peter Ellis trials; the question of accountability in the CTV building collapse; the tragedy of the Pike River mine explosion and the demand for regulatory responsibility – from a childhood in rural Canterbury and the mud of the rugby field to the panelled walls of courtrooms, King’s Counsel Nigel Hampton’s needle-sharp, compelling memoir spans some of New Zealand’s most significant cases.
After more than six decades in the legal profession, including terms as Chief Justice in the Kingdom of Tonga and commissioner with the International Criminal Court in The Hague, this consummate storyteller offers a forensic examination of a career ‘striving to achieve right, correcting wrongs, through the law’.
His tale, with every deft twist and turn, reveals the heart, humour and acuity of one of New Zealand’s most respected defence lawyers who has influenced major changes in the legal profession. Underpinning his story is a clear thread: a conviction that the law matters most when it improves lives and strengthens justice – as such, A Life Forensic describes a career in which ‘the promptings of humanity’ are writ large.
About the Author
As one of this country’s leading criminal defence lawyers, Nigel Hampton KC has had some 60 (and more) years working in New Zealand courts at all levels, up and down the land. He has acted in many scores of homicide cases as well as many other jury trials, both civil and criminal.
Doing that sort of work at that level, saw him advanced to the most senior rank of courtroom lawyers in 1989 (Queen’s Counsel, now King’s Counsel) and projected him on to the national stage from an early time in his career. This led him to a variety of legal posts and appointments, including: in leading roles in Law Societies and Bar Associations; in Legal Aid bodies; in Criminal Law Reform bodies both national and international; in lawyers disciplinary bodies again both nationally and internationally (including at the International Criminal Court); in New Zealand’s miscarriage of justice commission (the CCRC); and as Chief Justice of the Kingdom of Tonga.
Immediately following the disastrous events in New Zealand in 2010 (Pike River Mine explosion) and 2011 (the fatal Christchurch earthquakes), he was enmeshed in various forms of advocacy and litigation on behalf of those most affected by those catastrophic events, namely the families of those killed in the mine (29 boys and men) and the families of those killed in the collapsed CTV building (115 persons from a variety of countries).
Almost inevitably, Hampton was to become involved in acting for a number of the families of those killed in the Christchurch Mosque massacres of 2019, as well as some of the wounded survivors.
And, as he himself has observed, his legal world of “traditional” homicides (murder and manslaughter) tried in criminal courts, in the last 15 years or so, has become a world of
industrial scale homicide more often “tried” in the court of public opinion.
For balance in his own life, Hampton writes of his involvement in rugby, of his and his family’s beloved sanctuary of Kawatea/Okains Bay on Banks Peninsula and of sailing and floundering and other fishing (including a tangle with a stingray, the ray winning easily); and of the extraordinary Museum in that Bay.
Once described as caring too much (about people that is) to be seen as safe as a judge, Hampton has always held to the belief that the law, necessarily, should be driven by the promptings of humanity and that the individual human being must be the ultimate focus of the law, even in the midst of catastrophic mass deaths and destruction. Which serves to underline for him, the need for continual vigilance to ensure that the rule of law is respected and observed both nationally and internationally, a proposition under malignant attack in recent times.
For services to the law, he was awarded an OBE in 1988 and a CNZM in 2018. Perhaps reflecting recognition of a life lived striving to achieve right and to correct wrongs through the law, led by, impelled by, his moral scruples and ethical responsibilities.
It is that life which he now forensically examines for the reader.
Specifications
ISBN: 978-1-997375-02-9
Pages: 256 pages (incl. 3 x 8pp photo inserts)
Dimensions: 229mm x 152mm (Portrait)
Format: Limpbound
Author: Nigel Hampton
Published: 16 November 2026
Endorsements
Foreword
by Katherine Dalziel
This spellbinding account of a life lived in the service of justice makes for compelling, thought-provoking and richly entertaining reading.
I first met Nigel Hampton KC when I joined the legal profession in 1989. From the outset, I was struck by his unique combination of ferocious legal intellect, wit and a way with words, all tempered by a rare humility and driven by a deep passion for justice.
Over thirty years later, I would have the privilege of acting alongside Nigel in the coronial inquiry into the March 15 terrorist attack, for many of the families of the deceased and those injured by bullets. I thought I knew Nigel well before we worked together, and I was right. What you see is what you get: he is the real thing.
Nigel’s memoir took me on a captivating walk through the courtrooms, rugby fields and family places that have shaped his life and career. His experiences in many of New Zealand’s leading cases are recounted with the same eloquence and humour that has no doubt held many juries enthralled. Nigel’s pathway, too, is full of stories about where he found himself, and about the people he found there. Along the way, he is often diverted by fascinating details – what this jury foreman said after an acquittal, what occurred in that rugby game, or by a recollection from his childhood in Leeston that set the foundation for his sense of place, identity and love of family.
Many of these vignettes became laugh-out-loud moments for me. Yet, throughout this walk, I also felt inspired by Nigel’s marathon-like pursuit of justice, even when, in his own words, disillusionment and exhaustion from the punishment the criminal law imposes on the defence lawyer’s mind and body tempted him to give up.
There was another person on our walk: Jennie Hampton. She was fully present every step of the way. I love a good love story – especially this one.
By the end of our walk, I had the sense not simply of having read about a distinguished advocate, but of having experienced a man whose humanity is the deepest thread in his life.
Ngā mihi nui: thank you, Nigel.
