Biography
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Jeremy Doogue has been engaged in the law for several decades. He practised initially in the city of Hamilton where he was employed by the law firm of McCaw Smith and Arcus in which he became a partner.
He was initially engaged in criminal cases with a major proportion of those being jury trials. In the 1980s he began to practice in the field of civil litigation. In 1987 he became a barrister-sole practicing in Hamilton - again in the area of civil litigation. He specialised in that work category until he took up appointment as a District Court Judge in 1996.
During his time as a District Court Judge from 1996 to 2005 Jeremy Doogue presided over numerous jury trials, amongst other proceedings. He spent a period as an associate Environment Court Judge and was also specifically warranted to preside over mental health applications brought for review of detention orders under the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Act 1982. He was appointed to hear ACC appeals for a period. For several years he served as the Northern Region executive judge. As well he was appointed by the Minister of Justice for a number of terms as Acting Chief District Court Judge. For 6 years he was chair of the Trans-Tasman Occupations Tribunal.
From 2005 to 2018 Jeremy Doogue served as an Associate High Court Judge at Auckland a role in which he obtained wide experience in commercial litigation as well as insolvency, land law and other cases. He was the Senior Associate Judge for a period of some years, a role which involved his membership of the High Court Management Committee. It is estimated that he has written several hundred substantive decisions as well as carrying a substantial case management workload. As an Associate Judge, he also chaired numerous Judicial Settlement Conferences.
Jeremy Doogue was also a member of the Rules Committee for a number of years. Outside of practice, he was the chair of the Auckland Rugby Union Disciplinary Appeals Committee for some years.
He currently chairs a panel of the Real Estate Agents Disciplinary Tribunal.
Approach to Resolving Legal Disputes
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It is Jeremy’s objective to provide prompt and cost-effective dispute resolution services. In the context of an arbitration, this requires an early identification of what are genuinely the issues that need to be resolved and a winnowing out of non-essential/collateral aspects of the case.
In mediation, the approach adopted is to carefully analyse the components of each party’s case to avoid their negotiation stance being based upon faulty understandings of the strength of their case.
When providing second opinions and early neutral valuations, the approach is to provide a “reality check” on the case that is being put forward and to assess whether the necessary factual basis on which the case rests can be established. This will normally involve considering the briefs of evidence of the main witnesses together with a survey of relevant contemporary documents. A further element of the inquiry is to attempt to correctly identify the necessary legal elements that will be required in order to prepare a successful case.