Duncan Terris has been elected Chair of the New Zealand Law Society’s Property Law Section (PLS), succeeding Andrew Logan, who retired after 13 years on the PLS Executive.

Now the longest-serving PLS Executive member, having joined in 2007, Mr Terris’s service to property law on behalf of the Law Society goes back even further.

After Land Information New Zealand initiated the Landonline project, Mr Terris was appointed as the Law Society’s stakeholder representative on the project in 1999, continuing in that role for several years. He was also on the Society’s committee that became the Property Law Section’s Land Titles Committee. Mr Terris has served continuously on that committee since, becoming its convenor last year.

With the development of the Landonline project, which had a staged implementation, Mr Terris was appointed the Law Society’s E-dealing Consultant in 2005. He continues to serve in that part-time role.

Mr Terris has also presented the NZLS CLE Ltd popular annual Residential Property Transactions two-day course for the past 10 years.

After graduating from Canterbury University in 1988, Mr Terris was in general practice with a Palmerston North firm for about six years. He then moved to Australia, was admitted in New South Wales and worked as a lawyer in a Sydney firm, Swaab Attorneys for three years.

After returning from Australia he started his own practice, then known as Mobile Conveyancing Services, in Christchurch in late 1997. At the beginning of this year, he moved the practice – now known as Terris Legal – to Tauranga.

Mr Terris says that being a lawyer is something he wanted to do from the time he was in secondary school. The challenge of lawyering and the variety of options available were what attracted him to the profession.

Mr Terris is keen on a variety of sports. He is a regular runner, competing normally in half marathons, is a swimmer and is a competitive rower. He also enjoys skiing and takes a keen interest in motor sport.

Also at the PLS Executive meeting in Wellington on 7 May, Debra Dorrington, of Alexander Dorrington in Auckland, was elected for a third year as Deputy Chair and Peter Fanning, Tompkins Wake, Hamilton was elected Treasurer.

The retirement of Andrew Logan, and another long-serving Executive member, Todd Whitcombe, who served on the Executive for nine years, created two vacancies filled by new members Mark Sherry, of Harmans in Christchurch, and Katherine Wilmott, of Ashley Law in Rangiora.