Introducing our new Solicitor…
My name is Makareta Coote and I am a new Solicitor here at Walker Murdoch Law, having joined the firm in May, 2021.
I am a proud Southlander having grown up in Bluff. I am Rakiura Māori of Kāti Mamoe, Waitaha and Kai Tahu descent.
I graduated from the University of Otago in 2018 and was admitted as a Barrister and Solicitor of the High Court in 2019. I spent the first two years of practice in a wide range of areas within property/conveyancing, commercial and trust law. I bring those skills to WM Law and now also practice in Family Law as a junior Solicitor alongside Pip Walker.
Being the first generation of lawyers in my family, I entered the law profession by a chance encounter with Mark Henaghan, the former Dean of the Law School at Otago University. In my last year of school at Southland Girls’ High School, my twin sister, Katarina and I, attended the annual University open day where we met Mark in an elevator who encouraged us to attend his introductory law lecture instead of an archaeology one like they had planned.
The introductory lecture discussed the case, R v Dudley and Stephens. The case concerned survival cannibalism following a shipwreck where Dudley and Stephens were shipwrecked along with two others. When the cabin boy slipped into a coma, they killed him for food. The case set a precedent determining that necessity was not a defence to a murder charge. I was intrigued by that case and decided to sign up to the first-year law paper.
Having never been particularly academic at school, I didn’t consider I would ever make it into law school (being limited to 200 candidates who completed the first year) so when I did, I was ecstatic. However, my excitement was short-lived when I found out that Katarina had not made it into law school. It was a bittersweet moment. Katarina decided though, that she wasn’t going to give up and repeated the first-year law paper in hope that she would be admitted to the law school the second time around. She succeeded in doing so. We ended up being able to graduate together as she shortened her law degree by doing all of the summer school papers she possibly could.
I am grateful for that encounter with Mark Henaghan and will always remember how I was encouraged to enter the field of law. I hope to encourage others who may not have initially considered law as a career. I am on the Southland New and Young Practitioners Committee which organises events for young lawyers and encourages other young Southlanders to join the legal profession.
Outside of the office, I enjoy spending time with whanau and spending my holidays at Ruapuke Island.