Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.
~ Winston Churchill
Lisa Hughes
Lisa has practiced as a lawyer in South Africa, New Zealand, and Australia. Lisa qualified in South Africa and immigrated to New Zealand in 2000 where she worked in the Auckland District Court as a jury trial Court Registrar and with the Crown Solicitors’ office as a jury trial administrator. During this time Lisa requalified to practice in New Zealand and was admitted to the New Zealand High Court in 2006.
Lisa was employed as a crown prosecutor with the Auckland and Rotorua Crown Solicitor’s office in both their tax and criminal teams. She prosecuted criminal and civil matters in the District Court.
Lisa immigrated to Australia in 2007 and was admitted to the Supreme Court of Brisbane. She worked as a Legal Officer and a Crown Prosecutor with the Director of Public Prosecutions and appeared regularly in the Queensland District and Magistrates Court on sentences, committal hearings and jury trials.
In 2012 Lisa returned to New Zealand with her young family for personal reasons. She was employed with the Ministry of Justice as the Court Coordinator for the Auckland Alcohol and Drug Treatment Court and assisted in establishing the first pilot of the Drug Court in New Zealand.
In 2013 Lisa took a position with the Auckland Public Defence Service as a defence lawyer. She regularly appeared in the Auckland District Court, the Drug Court, and the Domestic Violence Court, on criminal and domestic violence matters.
In 2015 Lisa returned to Australia and went into private practice as a sole practitioner focusing in the areas of Wills and Estates, and domestic violence law.
Wills and Estates has always been an area of law Lisa has been passionate about. Ensuring clients from all walks of life have an estate plan in place and helping clients understand the complexities of estate planning is incredibly rewarding. Estate planning requires having open and honest and often difficult conversations with clients. To understand a client’s estate planning needs you need to have intimate knowledge of their family structure, financial set up and end of life wishes. Lisa is compassionate and genuinely invested in acting in the best interests of her clients.
Lisa’s experience in working on both sides of the fence in defence and prosecution and having the benefit of working in different jurisdictions has provided her with resilience, emotional intelligence, objective professional judgement, and an insight into clients’ personal challenges. These skills allow her to provide considered, balanced and practical legal advice to her clients.