When he's not out killing possums and rats to save kiwis, Danny Tuato'o is doing his bit to promote rugby and reduce New Zealand's drowning rate.
Recently made associate at Whangarei firm Marsden Woods Inskip & Smith, Danny is on the board of the Northland Rugby Union and is chairman of Water Safety New Zealand.
- Name
- Danny James (Danny) Tuato'o
- Born
- Dunedin.
- Age
- 41 (11 August).
- Entry to law
- Graduated BA(Hons), MA (1998) and LLB from Otago University in 2004. Admitted in 2005.
- Workplace
- Associate at Marsden Woods Inskip & Smith, Whangarei.
- Speciality area
- Property law.
"At weekends I'm either up a mountain killing possums or trapping rats or down in Auckland with the kids, four girls who are all into gymnastics…"
Married to designer and artist Cathy Tuato'o Ross, the couple have daughters aged 13, 11, 7 and 5. "They keep you busy…"
"It was odd how I got into law..."
Along with a core of between 60 and 70 volunteers, plus DoC and regional council help, Danny is heavily involved in conservation, hunting and pest control work to improve local habitat for kiwi – with funding help from the Tindall Foundation and World Wildlife Foundation.
A recent episode of Pio Terei's Māori TV series Te Araroa: Tales from the Trails, featured the work done in the area to take back the bush for kiwis.
"Last year we killed about 3,000 rats… Kiwis are breeding naturally and we also bring some in… About 10 years ago a survey reckoned there were about 80 kiwis in the area we are working in; now there's about 800…"
His interest in water safety began when, as a kid "I got pulled out of a rip by my Dad or I would have been six feet under…"
"All our kids learned to swim and they are confident in the water…
"An opportunity came up for me to join the board of Water Safety New Zealand and within a short time I ended up being the chair… It keeps me busy with monthly board meetings in Wellington…
A follower of every sport – "I follow the Black Caps wherever they go and under King Kane they will do pretty well" – Danny doesn't play as much social sport as he would like to.
"I think I'm 20 but I'm really 40… And I have a heap of other stuff I do…
"I'm an art house and Quentin Tarantino fan… His movies have an unreal attraction… The Hateful Eight is just out and not everyone's cup of tea…
"I like biographies about successful people such as Colin Powell and Abraham Lincoln… He was a good lawyer…"
Born to an engineer father and kindy teacher mother, Danny is the only lawyer among five siblings and describes himself as anathema.
"The others have either got masters degrees or PhDs, a couple are doctors, some are in academic posts overseas… They all very well educated… Education was always impressed into our family… I'm probably the least educated with only three degrees…
"It was odd how I got into law…
"We were in American Samoa for my grandmother's funeral… That's where the Tuato'o comes from on my Mum's side… Mum was born in Fiji and Dad is Scots from Dunedin…
"I knew Otago law dean Mark Henaghan and flippantly put in an application to do first and second year law together at Otago… I was teaching at the polytech then…
"Mark phoned me on Christmas Day and told me to stop messing about and do law… He said that would sort me out…
"I did that and took up a job with him as a research fellow in the human genome project… I did a year on that and it was good grounding…
"I probably would have stayed in academe and ended up teaching but it was too much of a cushy number so I had a conversation with Warwick Deuchrass, of Anderson Lloyd, who said I should do some real legal practice…
"The irony is I had trained to do criminal law – and mainly doing prosecution… Most of my papers are in criminal but I ended up doing commercial…
"The Māori side of the family tree are from Whangarei so that was the attraction there… Cathy was at an art conference and through that got the chance of a job teaching art at NorthTec…
"At the same time I got a job teaching Māori there…
"We didn't want to live in Auckland, Dunedin is too bloody cold and Whangarei seemed a nice place to live…
"And for holidays we have about 12 or 15 beaches near where we live at Whangarei Heads…
"My car is always a safe pair of hands – I prefer Volvo and drive a Volvo C30T5 hatch – you can't get the kids in it…
"My dinner guests wouldn't include any lawyers or accountants… President Obama would be very good, and the Dalai Lama…
"Number 1 daughter – at 13 – wants to be a doctor… Daughter Number 3 wants to be an artist like her mother but her teacher told her she would not make any money and would have to live with her parents… So she came home and said she would be living with us for life…
"None of them want to be a lawyer… they don't like what Dad does…"
Danny is 41 today…
Jock Anderson has been writing and commenting on New Zealand lawyers and New Zealand's courts for most of his career in journalism. Contact Jock at jockanderson123@gmail.com.