Allan Cooke

I am a specialist in family law and with a focus on the law relating to children. This is about the relationships in all respects that children have with their parents, their whānau and their extended family groups. My legal education and training has had children at its centre. I have practiced family law since the late 1980s.  This has been in Auckland generally and primarily in South Auckland.  I have been involved in the mediation of family disputes since the early 1990s.  This has been an essential part of my work. I am married and have 4 adult daughters (including a stepdaughter) and 3 moko. 

My day-to-day work is as a senior barrister in the Family Court. I represent children and members of the families of children. I am often appointed to assist the court in such matters. I have represented parents and children in the High Court and children in the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court. An important aspect of my work is with the law of disability within the family law arena.

I believe that conflicts over the care of children are best resolved by agreements reached between the adults. An imposed court decision can only provide a structure within which the adults must then operate. Such outcomes are at times necessary, but if possible to be avoided.

My approach both as a lawyer and a mediator where there is a dispute over a child is first to ensure the outcome is safe (in all respects) for that child. Second, this is to occur within a care arrangement that will, as far as possible, honour and respect the child’s relationships with parents, whānau and wider family group.  A child cannot be seen in isolation from whānau and wider family. The third aspiration is to then reach an agreement that works in a practical sense for the child. This may require hard decisions from the adults involved.  Where appropriate, this will require flexibility to be built in (if possible) as a child’s development is never static. I endeavour to work to outcomes that reflect those guiding principles.

After working as a family lawyer for some time I realized I needed a better theoretical understanding of issues relating to children generally and going beyond the narrow confines of a legal and court directed outcome of family disputes.  I now have a post graduate diploma (distinction) in child advocacy (University of Otago) and a Ph.D. (in relation to issues of child protection), also from Otago.  My thesis was formally recognised by the Division of Humanities as being of exceptional quality. 

In the mid 1990s I engaged in mediation training and was able to better use mediation as a tool in my day-to-day work.  This continues today and informs my practice. In February 2016 I was one of three New Zealand Law Society Representatives who travelled to Geneva in February 2016 for the 73^rd Country Pre-Session of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child.  The New Zealand Law Society for the first time had been invited to participate at the “pre-sessional working group” meeting and to appear before the Committee on the Rights of the Child Convention. I was a member of the Executive of the Family Law section of the New Zealand Law Society from 2011 to 2016 and again from 2018 to 2021 and was chair of the section between 2014 and 2016.

I was lawyer appointed to represent the children in the leading family law case of Newton v Auckland Family Court [2022] which saw a definitive decision from the Court of Appeal in respect of issues relating to the voice of the child and how the child’s voice is to be heard and the role of lawyer for the child.