Presenters

James Skinner, Director, Skinners Law
James Skinner is an experienced civil litigator who has represented a wide range of clients, from individuals to companies and councils across New Zealand. He has acted in disputes regarding leaky buildings and many other types of construction cases, trusts and estates, commercial, company, property, insolvency and debt recovery, employment, sports appeals, driving offences, and some criminal charges. Over his career, James has assisted clients on all sides of a dispute, including building contractors and homeowners, employers and employees, creditors and debtors, suppliers and customers, landlords and tenants, business owners, and sports professionals. James also has extensive mediation experience. James also offers his services as an independent mediator to parties involved in disputes throughout New Zealand. James is an associate member of the Arbitrators’ and Mediators’ Institute of New Zealand and is passionate about alternative dispute resolution.


Matthew Ferrier, Partner, MinterEllisonRuddWatts
Matthew acts for both private and public sector clients on a broad range of complex and high-profile disputes. He is an experienced advocate, with a particular interest in major latent building defect litigation, and a regulatory investigations and prosecutions specialist. His recent experience includes acting on two of New Zealand’s largest, most complex latent defect claims involving novel structural and fire defects, claims arising from the Canterbury earthquake sequence, defending regulatory investigations and prosecutions brought by various regulators, Coronial inquiry work, fraud recovery, and public law litigation.

Grant de Lisle, Senior Associate, MinterEllisonRuddWatts
Grant is an experienced projects and construction lawyer with particular expertise in project advisory and dispute resolution. He specialises in complex and high value projects and disputes. Grant acts for a variety of public and private sector clients through the project lifecycle. His clients include crown entities, ministries, regulatory authorities, body corporates as well as large to medium sized contractors and consultants. Grant regularly represents his clients in all forms of dispute resolution, including litigation, arbitration, adjudication, mediation and negotiated settlements. He also helps lead the development and delivery of various Construction Law, Project Management and Master of Engineering papers at Auckland University and Auckland University of Technology.