UC graduates win prestigious law medals – delay because of earthquakes

Two University of Canterbury law graduates have won the prestigious law society Gold Medal.

Graduates Janet Dick (2010) and Amanda Mitchell (2011) have been named top in law for their year at the University of Canterbury.

They have been presented with the medal by president Rachel Dunningham on behalf of the Canterbury/Westland branch of the New Zealand Law Society.

The Gold Medal is awarded to the best student graduating LLB and is based on the student’s work and examination marks during the whole of their degree.

Janet Dick is currently completing a two year appointment as judges’ clerk in New Zealand’s highest court, the Supreme Court, where she is clerk to Justice John McGrath.  She will follow this with a six month position with Crown Law. Amanda Mitchell is a member of the commercial law team in one of New Zealand’s leading law firms Russell McVeagh.

Dunningham said the two outstanding graduates joined a long line of successful UC law students who had gone on to be High Court and Supreme Court judges and Queen’s Counsels. The most prominent is the Sir Andrew Tipping (1966) who has just retired from the Supreme Court.  In awarding the medals, Dunningham said the medals could not have been presented last year.

``This year’s presentation covered the two years 2010 and 2011 because the pieces needed to cast the medals were buried beneath rubble left by the earthquakes. A new model has been cast which also reflects the recent name change of the Canterbury/Westland Branch of the Law Society,’’ she said.