[Bundle] Principles of Oral Advocacy – Illustrated in the Effective Closing Address

Hon Paul Heath KC

Hon Paul Heath KC was called to the New Zealand Bar in 1978, practised as a barrister and solicitor until 1998, when he was appointed Queen’s Counsel. In March 2002, after serving for five years as a consultant (two years) and member (three years) of the New Zealand Law Commission, Paul was appointed as a Judge of the High Court of New Zealand. Between 2003 and 2017, he sat as an ad hoc member of the Court of Appeal on numerous occasions, on both the Civil Appeal Division and Criminal Appeal Division. Paul has been involved in the New Zealand Law Society’s Litigation Skills Programme since the mid-1990s as a faculty member, team leader and, during his time on the Bench, a Judge in mock trials.

Paul was a Commercial List Judge and a member of the Commercial Panel of the High Court when he retired from the Bench in April 2018, and joined Bankside Chambers. He is also an Associate at South Square in London, the leading set of insolvency and restructuring chambers. Paul practises primarily as an arbitrator, both in domestic and international arbitrations. He also provides commercial mediation services and strategic advice in complex disputes, particularly in his specialist field of insolvency and restructuring. He is one of a number of members of Bankside Chambers who also have rooms at Maxwell Chambers in Singapore, as well as being a Registered Foreign Lawyer with the Singapore International Commercial Court.

Paul is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (UK) and a Fellow of the Arbitrators’ and Mediators’ Institute of New Zealand. He is on the panel of arbitrators available for appointment through the Singapore International Arbitration Centre, the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre and the Australian Centre for International Commercial Arbitration. In New Zealand, he is a member of panels that have been established by the Arbitrators’ and Mediators’ Institute of New Zealand and the New Zealand Dispute Resolution Centre. In June 2019, he was appointed as a member of P.R.I.M.E Finance’s Panel of Experts for Dispute Resolution.

Paul’s specialist area of insolvency practice is cross border insolvency. He was New Zealand’s delegate to Working Group V of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law and chaired two of its meetings when holding the position of Vice Chair. He has been involved in much judicial capacity building in this area; most recently on assignments from the World Bank in Mauritius, India and China. Paul has also been engaged by the Asian Development Bank as a consultant on court related projects in Myanmar and Sri Lanka. He is one of the co-consulting editors of the leading New Zealand text on insolvency law, Heath & Whale on Insolvency. Paul was inducted as a Fellow of the American College of Bankruptcy in 2000, and is currently co-chair of INSOL International’s ADR Colloquium.

Paul is currently Chief Justice of the Pitcairn Islands and a Judge of the Court of Appeal of Tonga.

Ms Rina See

Rina is a Singaporean citizen who has lived in New Zealand and London for over 20 years. She is dual-qualified in New Zealand and England and Wales and has over 10 years of experience in practice.

As part of a leading international arbitration practice in London, Rina has represented States, state entities and multinational corporations in high-stakes international commercial and investment arbitrations, in common law and civil law jurisdictions, under a wide variety of arbitral rules and governing laws. Rina’s practice covers a wide range of industries, including in the financial services, technology, pharmaceutical, energy, manufacturing and telecommunications sectors. She regularly advises on issues of conflict of laws and on cross-border enforcement of arbitral awards and judgments.

Rina has also been a prosecutor and solicitor for one of New Zealand's Crown Solicitors, focusing on commercial, regulatory and criminal litigation, including in high profile litigation against parties involved in finance company collapses.

Rina holds a BA/LLB(Hons) from the University of Auckland and completed the BCL at the University of Oxford.

Ms Karen Chow

Karen is Malaysian-Chinese but has strong ties to New Zealand (NZ) after living there for more than two decades and qualifying as a lawyer there. Prior to working as a litigator, Karen had a 10-year career in finance where she worked in several countries including Asia and Europe. Karen is a Prime Minister’s Scholar and graduated from The University of Auckland with an LLB(Hons). She is currently finishing her LLM with a focus on alternative dispute resolution methods.

Karen relocated to Singapore with her son in 2023 and practices as a barrister sole. Karen has appeared in all levels of the NZ courts, and in mediations, adjudications, and arbitrations in NZ and internationally. Karen also worked briefly in Energy Law in China. A recent construction claim worth around NZD $30million took Karen back to Malaysia, where she assisted the respondent in achieving a negotiated outcome including full and final settlement of the claim.

In addition to English, Karen speaks fluent Mandarin, Bahasa and Hokkien. She comprehends Cantonese. Karen is based in South-East Asia and is available to serve clients in the Asia-Pacific region, Korea, and China

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