Tom Bennion (English, Irish, Welsh) has been in the trenches of courts and tribunals since 1987 when he went from an Honours degree in Law with a BA in Histroy to taking a position as a registrar of the Waitangi Tribunal. In 1993 he broke out on his own to begin practising as a barrister sole, and started publishing the Māori Law Review in December 1993, in response to the newly enacted Te Ture Whenua Māori Act 1993.

In the areas of Māori land law and Treaty of Waitangi claims, Tom commands in-depth understanding of the mechanics of these systems, with clients in almost all Waitangi Tribunal inquiries to date, as well as various Māori clients in the jurisdictions of the Māori Land Court, the Environment Court, the High Court, and the Court of Appeal, as well as involvement with a number of Treaty settlement negotiations.

To date, Tom has opened more than four hundred files as a barrister-sole.

Read Tom's Curriculum Vitae [PDF]