Hon Sir Mark Cooper KC
Arbitratormlscooper@icloud.com+64 21 389 835Personal WebsiteLinkedIn ProfilePersonal CVThe Honourable Sir Mark Cooper KNZM, KC was a partner at national law firm Simpson Grierson, from 1983 to 1997. He then practised at the Bar in Auckland until 2004. He was appointed Queen’s Counsel in March 2000.
Practice Areas
Education
Bio
The Honourable Sir Mark Cooper KNZM, KC was a partner at national law firm Simpson Grierson from 1983 to 1997. He then practised at the Bar in Auckland until 2004. He was appointed Queen’s Counsel in March 2000.
He was appointed to the High Court in March 2004, sitting in Auckland. He became a Judge of the Court of Appeal in September 2014 and was appointed President of the Court in April 2022. Sir Mark retired from the judiciary having reached the mandatory retirement age of 70 in November 2024.
While a High Court Judge, Sir Mark was appointed to be the chair of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into building failure caused by the Canterbury Earthquakes of 2010–2011.
Between May 2011 and November 2012, he chaired many public hearings and led the Commission to deliver four reports under intense time pressure and public scrutiny, navigating high volumes of evidence, including technical, structural, and earthquake engineering evidence. He chaired the Council of Legal Education from 2018 to 2024 and was founding chair of the judiciary’s open justice committee, Huakina kia Tika.
Before joining the judiciary, he was a leader in resource management and local government law. He wrote the annotated text “Cooper on Local Government”, published as a companion volume to Salmon on the Resource Management Act.
In the 1989 reorganisation of local government in the Auckland Region, he advised on the integration of thirteen territorial authorities into one Auckland isthmus-based Council and six territorial authorities into one North Shore based Council.
He served on the establishment board of Metrowater Limited, the Museum of Transport and Technology Board and the Auckland Observatory and Planetarium Trust Board.
For 20 years, Sir Mark served on the controlling executive of the Cancer Society of New Zealand Auckland Division.
Sir Mark’s whakapapa includes the Waikato-Tainui iwi Ngāti Māhanga, and English, Scottish, and Irish ancestry.
Case Highlights
What Others Say
Publications
No items found.