Losing the summer for the love of law (and Wellington!)
Leaving a hard-earned summer in Toronto is one of the only pangs Estair Van Wagner has experienced since moving to Wellington with her young family to take up a lectureship at Victoria University’s Faculty of Law.
Leaving a hard-earned summer in Toronto is one of the only pangs Estair Van Wagner has experienced since moving to Wellington with her young family to take up a lectureship at Victoria University’s Faculty of Law.
An expert in property and land use law, Estair is teaching LAWS 301 Property Law and LAWS 318 Resource Management Law. She is also completing her doctorate from Osgoode Hall Law School, looking at the role of participation in land use and environmental decision-making.
Estair completed her studies in political science, law, and environmental studies in Canada before serving as a judicial law clerk at the Ontario Superior Court of Justice. She then worked as a labour and human rights lawyer, an academic researcher, and a political advisor at the local and federal levels in Canada.
She believes Canadians feel a natural affinity with New Zealand and that there are many areas of the law in which we look to each other.
“I think this is particularly true in terms of environmental law, natural resource management and the rights of indigenous peoples, all areas of particular interest to me as a researcher, a lawyer, and a human being.”
Estair says the decision to move to Wellington was an easy one.
“We visited New Zealand in 2013 and it was one of our favourite places on the trip—my partner and I actually turned to each other riding up the cable car and said, ‘how could we live here?’. When the posting came up for a Property Law position at Victoria, we jumped at the chance to make it happen.”
As she looked further into Victoria’s Law School, Estair was impressed at the support for research and the strength of the faculty in a variety of areas of law and policy.
“It was clear that this research-supportive environment would be a wonderful place to be an early career academic and I was delighted to have the opportunity to teach in my areas of interest.”
Since moving to Wellington Estair says she and her family have been struck by how warm, welcoming and generous her new colleagues have been. Now that they are here they continue to be amazed at how kind and helpful everyone is in Wellington.
“We knew from our visit that it is a beautiful city, but now that we have had the chance to explore many more areas we can’t believe our luck! We love the small size of the city and the access to the outdoors. Of course, being Canadian we also love this version of winter that never dips below zero!”