Regent Law is a Whangarei based general practice Law firm with a strong commercial focus.
Goals
Our goals are simply to offer quality legal services and advice.
History
In 2003 Regent Law was founded by Nigel Mason and Christopher Perry (formerly from Whangarei Law firm Henderson Reeves). Laurie McBrain soon joined the team. Laurie was previously a partner at the historic firm of Connell Rishworths in Whangarei where Nigel Mason had also previously worked. Carolyn McCleod soon joined as a legal exectutive as did Judith Burden.
In 2014, Regent Law took over another local Whangarei Law Firm “Swan Law” from George Swanepol who was moving on to work for a council.
In 2016, Isabel Blake (who had previously worked for Regent Law) took over as principal from Nigel Mason. Nigel continued to work for Regent Law until July 2017 with his wife Joy.
Regent Law for a long time offered the cheapest legal fees in Northland – particularly when it came to conveyancing. With Isabel taking over, the focus has become more on providing quality legal services and advice. We are constantly striving to improve our systems, processes, and service and though we will never achieve perfection, it is always the goal.
Isabel’s approach to running a law firm is born of her experiences at the firms she has previously been apart of. Before gaining a first class honours degree (Bachelor of Law), Isabel had first worked as a secretary for Wayne Peters (a well respected Whangarei commercial lawyer) at Thompson Wilson.
Isabel’s first position as a lawyer was for the Whangarei law firm Webb Ross. Isabel stayed there for a couple of years before being made redundant with 9 others during a round of redundancies when times were quiet for the firm.
Shortly thereafter, Nicole Prossor helped Isabel further her career by hiring her as a Lawyer to help with the Paihia Branch of Law Direct in the Bay Of Islands. At that time Nicole wasn’t really in need of another Lawyer and Isabel is forever indebted for the help and training given to her by Nicole and the Law Direct team.
Her career further developed when (with the approval of Nicole) Peter Jones employed Isabel. Though Isabel had been focussed on commercial work at Webb Ross, the type and level of commercial work Isabel was exposed to while working for Peter Jones was beyond anything Isabel had previous encountered in Whangarei and has given her the strong commercial background she now has for running her own firm.
To get back to Whangarei (with Peters Jones approval) Isabel took a 6 month contract for Wayne Peters and was proud to say at the end of that period, Wayne hadn’t altered or asked to alter a single contract she prepared.
From Wayne Peters, Isabel moved to the super busy firm Regent Law as a general practice lawyer. Regent Law was another level in terms of busy and gave Isabel a huge amount of conveyancing and general practice experience before she eventually left to go out on her own.
Later, Isabel was asked by Nigel if she would like to take over Regent Law, which she did and now runs from a modest but modern, single storey premises in the Regent. Location and ease of parking was important, as was being single storey to help with accessibility in order to help better serve many of Regent Laws mature clients.
Joining the team in December 2017 as a director and lawyer is none other than Peter Jones – Isabel’s previous employer and mentor. Aside from many large national clients (and the New Zealand end of some international clients) Peter brings many years of high level commercial law experience and a drive to turn Regent Law into Northlands premiere commercial law firm. Being an extremely experienced and respected commercial lawyer, Peter has lectured law at Waikato University and has authored and co-authored many publications used at law schools in New Zealand and by the New Zealand law society.