Michael Walker

Michael Walker

Principal

Michael oversees the civil litigation, criminal and dispute resolution teams at TODD & WALKER Law.

Michael’s practice includes all manner of disputes, including criminal, regulatory, RMA enforcement and prosecutions, employment, civil, liquor licensing and commercial litigation.

Michael is at home in the Court room and is an experienced advocate who regularly appears in the District and High Courts in the South Island as well as other alternative dispute platforms. Michael regularly represents clients in regulatory, local government and civil proceedings and has successfully appeared on a number of appeals and judicial review hearings. 

Michael has appeared in the full hierarchy of criminal matters, including jury trials involving allegations of murder, serious violence, drug manufacture and importation, sexual violation, fraud, arson and appeals against conviction and sentence in both the High Court and Court of Appeal.  He has conducted over 50 jury trials as lead counsel.

In terms of background, Michael was born and bred in Southland before attending the University of Otago where he graduated with a Bachelor of Laws and a Bachelor of Commerce. Following his admission to the bar he moved to the Crown Solicitor’s Office in Auckland to begin his professional career.  Michael spent the first six and a half years of his career in the Commercial and then the Criminal and Regulatory departments at a top Auckland firm where Michael was an experienced litigator and Crown Prosecutor. 

Michael returned to the South Island to begin working at QLDC initially as an in-house Solicitor before later becoming General Counsel.

Then in 2017, Michael joined Graeme in private practice and they formed TODD & WALKER Law.

Michael is a member of the counsel panel for the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care. Michael is also involved in a number of organisations within the community, Michael is the chairman for the regionally significant Queenstown Trails Trust, responsible for the creation and management of the network of cycle and walking trails within the Wakatipu basin. He also sits on the board of trustees of the Wakatipu Community Foundation. 

Michael is a Chartered Director of the Institute of Directors in New Zealand.