Alan Dormer

Areas of Practice
General Background
Professional Background
Public Appointments/Honours
Publications & Relevant Activities

Areas of Practice

• Administrative & Constitutional Law / Public Law and Policy
• Environment & Local Government
• Liquor Law
• Resource Management
• Electoral Law

• Admitted: Barrister 1988
• Degrees: Bachelor of Laws (Hons) - University of Auckland
• Master of Public Policy (with Merit) - Victoria University of Wellington.

Professional Background

Prior to joining the Independent Bar, Alan was for 13 years, from the age of 26, a partner in the old Auckland firm of Nicholson Gribbin, which subsequently merged into Phillips Fox. The firm included amongst its clients a number of local authorities, an oil company and a brewery. Whilst at the firm Alan practised very largely in the fields of resource management, local government and liquor licensing. Since joining the Independent Bar his practice has been confined exclusively to the areas of practice listed above.

Alan's eminence in resource management is reflected in his having been:

• an advisor to the last five Governments and the Law Commission;
• retained by over 30 local authorities since joining the independent bar;
• appointed as a Hearings Commissioner by eight local authorities;
• retained by the University of Auckland and the Ministry for the Environment to teach the  "Making Good Decisions" programme for Hearing Commissioners;
• the only person to have been awarded both the RMLS's "Outstanding Person" award and the NZ Planning Institute's A.O. Glasse award;
• elected to three terms as President of the RMLA. 

• 2010 - Appointed by the Minister for the Environment to chair the Technical Advisory Group on Urban Issues under the Resource Management Act.. 
  
• 2010 - Appointed by the Minister for the Environment as a member of the Technical Advisory Group to report on Infrastructure issues under the Resource Management Act 2010. 
  
• 2009 - Received the Outstanding Person Award from the Resource Management Law Association of New Zealand for his outstanding contribution to the resource management field and significant input in shaping central government policy. 
  
• 2009 - Appointed by the Minister for the Environment to chair the Technical Advisory Group commissioned to report on reforms to the Resource Management Act.
• 2007 - Reappointed to the advisory panel on Environmental Legal Aid.

Publications & Relevant Activities

• A member of the Editorial Panel of the NZ Environment Reports
• One of the contributors to Resource Management an annotation of the RMA, the General Editor of which is Salmon J;
• Sale of Liquor: A Dormer, A G Sherriff and J C Cookston, Brooker & Friend, 1990
• The Liquor Laws of New Zealand: L H Southwick, A Dormer and G R Halford, Butterworths, 1983. (This book received the Legal Research Foundation’s J F Northey prize for the best law text of the year.)
• The author of the commentary to the former Rating Powers Act 1988 in McVeagh’s Local Government Law in New Zealand;
• Formerly Legal Editor of Local Government Magazine and for over ten years contributed a regular column to this monthly journal.

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