About Karen Harding Lawyer
Karen Harding LLM(Hons) LLB B.Plan, is a Barrister and Solicitor based in Auckland New Zealand, who is the Principal of her firm and the Trust Account Supervisor. Karen specialises in Criminal and Traffic Law and litigation. Her clients include people who have been, or will be, charged with an offence who need to appear in court or have a driver’s licencing problems or require a limited licence or require legal submissions to be prepared and require legal advice and representation in court in relation to litigation.
Karen has been practicing as a litigation lawyer since 1997 and has represented thousands of clients on charges ranging from driving offences to very serious criminal charges and trials as well as applications for parole, limited licence applications and many other types of cases.
Karen is an experienced litigator conducting cases in the District Court, High Court, Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court.
As well as criminal defence litigation and traffic law work Karen is also involved in leading, preparing and conducting complex Civil Litigation assisting human trafficking victims and seafarers to obtain Justice in relation to Human Rights Abuses at sea (Forced Labour and modern day slavery claims), unpaid wage claims and Employment Law, Admiralty Law and Fisheries Act matters as well as Succession applications in the Maori Land Court.
Academic Qualifications
- Master of Law Degree with Honors (Public Law), University of Auckland
- Bachelor of Law Degree, Victoria University Wellington
- Bachelor of Planning Degree, Auckland University
- Admitted as a Barrister and Solicitor of the High Court of New Zealand May 1997
- Held a Practicing Certificate as a Barrister from 1997 until 31 January 2012
- Current Practicing Certificate as a Barrister & Solicitor with a Trust Account since 1 February 2012
- Trust Account Supervisor at Karen Harding Law from 1 February 2012 onwards
- New Zealand Law Society Certificate of Advanced Litigation Skills 2005
Below is a video slide show called “Catching the Oyang” relating to the case of “Hartono and 29 others v Ministry of Primary Industries and the Sajo Oyang Corporation of Korea”. This was a 5-year court case between April 2015 and December 2018 that involved Civil Litigation, Employment Law Litigation, Admiralty Law and the Fisheries Act 1996 (in particular section 256(1)(b)(ii) of the Fisheries Act 1996) and involved unpaid wage claims for period 2007 to 2011 and human rights advocacy for impoverished fishers resident in Indonesia who did not speak English. This involved a complex claim for 30 Indonesian fishers who worked on Korean fishing trawlers in New Zealand waters on work permits who were owed a substantial amount of unpaid wages from their employer.
This slide show of photographs and images shows our litigation journey from collecting evidence from the crew and witnesses in Indonesia including typing, preparing and swearing affidavits in Indonesia with Indonesian translators, swearing affidavits at the Notary’s office in Tegal Central Java and working with the crew from the Oyang vessels Oyang 70 and Oyang 77 and the preparation of legal submissions and documents in New Zealand and the court process in New Zealand all the way to the Supreme Court.
he video is on Youtube on the Karen Harding Lawyer Channel and was made during the court case which acted as inspiration for the team and the crew. The team comprised at the time a large number of legal assistants, translators, other legal professionals, the crew, and support people. The case preparation involved a team effort lead by Karen Harding. We had a very good and vibrant enthusiastic team spirit with the crew all the way through the case which also had a high media profile. Karen, the crew and the support team made lots of videos together about the case to inform the public about the case, the applicable law, and about fishers rights and about the quest for Justice. The crew involved were empowered during the litigation process and went in their lives with increased potential and were lifted out of poverty as a result of this case.
On a personal level Karen found working with the crew, the Indonesian translation team, the legal assistants, law clerks and other professionals including the expert witnesses to be a very inspiring experience in the quest to seek justice for the crew and was a case aimed to achieve social change for the fishers.
Karen applied “Ethic of Care Principles” in her dealing with the crew to fully support them during this long quest for Justice.
The result of that high level of care and dedication to the quest for Justice was the empowerment of marginalized individuals from a remote third-world location in Central and West Java Indonesia who had been impoverished and downtrodden during their international fishing careers over a decade who were without a voice who were given a voice and respect.
The crew are proud of their achievement in regard to their participation in the court case as they were fully informed and educated on New Zealand laws during the process by us and they all participating in preparing affidavits to tell their story to the world and some gave testimony in court bravely telling the High Court Judge, other counsel, and the employer’s representatives about what had happened to them and the other crew members.
Due to the team-building done by Karen and her team and the 30 crew members and their families during the litigation process, the plaintiff crew members came to feel heard and respected and found their dignity restored enabling them to move on from trauma to have bright happy new lives and of course getting their wages helped them tremendously as they had been unpaid for up to a decade.
The crew became empowered and they have each gone to lead better lives with more options for their future and for their families including being able to buy a home, a vehicle, and some purchased a self-employed small business and got new opportunities so that they were lifted out of poverty.
Between 2015 and 2019 Karen spent a lot of time in Indonesia with the crew working with them on this case and helping them get ready for new lives. It was a unique international working experience and there are many videos of the trips with the crew ere we stayed in hotels together with them to do paperwork and trips to remote villages and we had a fabulous party at the went of the case in Semarang, Central Java Indonesia. Some of these videos and photos are shared by the consent of the crew clients in the Gallery of Photographs and Videos on this website as the crew are rightly proud of their court case and their team effort to get justice.
The litigation work itself was very interesting, complex, and challenging involving a lot of research, evidence gathering and preparation of legal documentation, affidavits and submissions and involved a considerable amount of national travel to appear in courts in Wellington and Christchurch and international travel. It was very intellectually stimulating and included an appeal to the Supreme Court of New Zealand. Karen particularly enjoyed the Admiralty law and the Fisheries Act parts of the case.
A litigation strategy was developed to advance the claim for unpaid wages by using a previously unused subsection of the Fisheries Act, being section 256(1)(b)(ii), to seek to sell a forfeited sister ship (the FV Oyang 75) that was put into Crown ownership that had been released on bond (which is like bail) to the fishing company that had been owned before forfeiture by the employer, to pay the unpaid wages owed to the crew who had not worked on that ship. The 30 fishers had been crew on either a ship that had sunk (the FV Oyang 70) or on a ship that was also forfeited (the Oyang 77) that was of low value. The legal strategy which worked lead to appeals on the statutory interpretation of section 256(1)(b)(ii) of the Fishiersd Act as it had not been invoked before. Karen learned the finer points Admiralty law and fully argued admiralty case law in the Supreme Court. Karen also appeared on Employment law matters for the crew in the Employment Court.
The Supreme Court agreed with our view that the crew could apply under section 256(1)(b)(ii) over the sister ship (Oyang 75) to claim their unpaid wages for the crew who worked on Oyang 77 and Oyang 70 ships so we created a new entry in the law books with this being the first claim under section 256(1)(b)(ii) of the Fisheries Act. The crew were very excited about our Supreme Court victory.
It was Karen in court leading the case for the plaintiff crew members arguing the case in court and preparing the submissions for the fishers versus the Queen’s Counsel’s representing the fishing company and its team of solicitors. Accordingly, it was David verse Goliath type of case in terms of resources between the respective parties in this litigation as the employer of the crew was a huge successful foreign fishing company.
Karen is a passionate and committed lawyer who enjoys court work and she enthusiastically produced voluminous paperwork that she personally argued in court and knew inside out.
This case was so huge we engaged in team-building in Auckland and in Indonesia with a few barrister colleagues, graduates, law students, and translators, and other supporters to help in the paperwork war. The case also required briefing and preparing expert witnesses. It was a very interactive team experience requiring a lot of resources to be provided by Karen as well as organization, commitment, passion, and project management and communication skills. The paperwork creation, organization, and management, in this case, was significant and was a masterpiece of pink tabbing, indexing, binding, and hyperlinking.
Karen greatly appreciated her legal assistant team on the case who helped prepare legal documentation during their various stints of employment with Karen. The roll call of thanks to employees at that time between 2015 and 2019 included Epi Alesana, Steffi Tindale, Joanna Ji, Kate Goodman-Creed, Harry Redwood, Ilya Kozlov, Amanda Pertiwi, Maya Ardanti, Christy Lim, David Setiawan, Jesselyn Setiawan, Tatum Adingrum, Zita Sara, Inswasti Setiawan, Rudy Harahap, Max, Barbara Chalk, Joy Leahy, Jil Falcone. Also special thanks to Kerry Harding who was the practice manager who was very helpful in organizing the accounting-related activities that were involved in this case. The employed legal assistant team and translators dedicated themselves to help the crew achieve justice during the period of their employment with us and were greatly appreciated.
The support team was a great help with the extensive amount of research, tabbing, binding, editing documents, hyperlinking involved. The hours involved in preparing this case were absolutely huge and we constantly drowned opposing counsel in paperwork. For a small law firm with one main lawyer Karen Harding running the case and a team of legal assistants, we were a force to be reckoned with and we were all absolutely passionate and determined to get justice for the crew which the crew felt we did.
The section 256 Fisheries Act case fitted well with Karen’s advocacy skillset acquired working on cases in the criminal law and traffic law jurisdiction and from the research skills gained during her master’s degree. Karen has a passion for helping people and a strong desire to achieve good outcomes for people to help them improve their lives.
This section 256 case with the fishers case shows that Karen has a good cross over of skills developed 20 plus years doing traffic law and defending drink drivers (which involves statutory interpretation and includes including opposing confiscation of property) and from criminal law experience (including appearing in and preparing for long multi accused jury trials for example in long drug cases involving money-laundering allegations) to other types of law involving complex cases, large numbers of people, voluminous amounts of paperwork that includes high stress and high stakes litigation and cases involving statutory interpretation, research, and advocacy in the courtroom.
