In one box is a simple blue notebook, with a scribbled date in 1987, and three points on how to be a good lawyer:
- write well
- computer competence (more radical than it sounds in 2026)
- take advantage of the University.
At Geoff’s first ever law lecture, Professor John Prebble came in to speak to the students. As Dean of the Law School at the time, he gave the class those three points of advice.
Now, almost 40 years later, while teaching in the same faculty where he studied law, he passes on that advice to his own students.
Geoff went on to complete his Master’s degree and later his Doctorate at the University of Michigan, before returning to Victoria University of Wellington to teach. He then became a Law Commissioner for five years, before coming back and eventually becoming Dean.
“This University, and the name Vic in particular, holds a sense of belonging for me. It’s part of who we are.
“I do this job because I want to give the students here the same opportunities that I was given in 1987, 1988,1989.”
As well as being a proud alumnus of the University, Geoff is also a proud alumnus of Aotea College in Porirua.
“I was very fortunate in all the wonderful teachers that taught me there. They really enthused people for the humanities, and I learnt Latin and history and economics and many other interesting subjects.”
His teachers believed he would do well in law and so Geoff enrolled in his local university, pursuing a Bachelor of Law and Arts, majoring in History.
“The history course that I did was this amazing course with three of New Zealand’s top historians of that time: Jamie Belich, Miles Fairburn, and Claudia Orange. I still have a clear memory of Jamie disagreeing with Claudia about the Treaty of Waitangi,” says Geoff.
For these initial years, he lived at home, commuting to Kelburn daily. “I always blanch a little bit when advertisements say, ‘the real university experience is a halls experience’, because actually it wasn’t ours—we were the commuters, and we had a great time,” he says.
Geoff felt quite isolated during his first year at Te Herenga Waka, as many of his classmates chose not to attend university. But it was from this isolation that he chose to follow John Prebble’s advice.
“I didn’t know very much and was probably quite terrified of the whole student body, but I eventually ended up joining the debating club, the members of which became my very close friends. For example, David Capie, who’s a Professor of Strategic Studies here—I’ve known him since I was 19 years old.
He also joined what was then the law faculty club, now known as VUWLLS, where he met Simon Power, who would go on to become a Cabinet Minister and remains a close friend.
“You have to get out there and engage with your community,” says Geoff. “They’re the people you’ll know for the rest of your life.
“It’s all about beginning as someone who doesn’t know very much about the world and then learning and gaining the skills to go and do new things.”.
For Geoff, that means encouraging his students to explore beyond the obvious path, and to take every opportunity that comes their way.
“The whole point of university is to change. You don’t come to university to be the same person in a few years’ time. You come to university to become someone different.
“And so what you need to do is to change—that’s the first point.
“You want to do law? I would say do something else as well—do something that lights your fire. One of our best law students has been a physicist and another is a concert pianist.”
To be a good lawyer, Geoff believes that you need to enjoy the challenge of not knowing what a solution is when you begin.
“Sometimes people want easy solutions, but what we’re actually teaching is complex problem-solving. There’s a way of thinking about law—lawyers think in a particular way, but you can’t really describe what that thing is.”
“Studying law changes the way you think about things, and it’s that which makes you a good lawyer.”