Simon Gaines was re-elected President of the New Zealand Law Society’s Marlborough branch at the branch’s annual meeting on 24 March.

First elected Marlborough branch President in 2014, Mr Gaines is a sole practitioner. He works in the areas of resource management, dispute resolution and civil litigation.

This month Mr Gaines became a co-director, together with Steve Riley, of Lundons Law Ltd, trading as Lundons. For the five years before that, he was principal of Gaines Law.

Mr Gaines studied law at Victoria University. After working in Wellington and Blenheim, he worked in the United Kingdom for two years, then returned to New Zealand and completed his Masters in Management Studies, Resource Management, at Waikato University.

Following 10 years working in non-legal roles for Government and private sector organisations in resource management, Mr Gaines returned to the law, and back to Marlborough.

Mr Gaines is a founding member and trustee of Marlborough Community Mediation, a Charitable Trust established in 2011 for the purpose of providing mediation services to the Marlborough community. For the past four years he has also been the Law Society’s branch representative on the Board of Governance for Marlborough Community Law.

He is married to Kate, and they have three children: Isabel, Victoria and Patrick.

At the annual meeting, Jacqueline Eves was re-elected the branch Vice-President. The new Marlborough branch Council members are: Kent Arnott, Laura McFarlane, Laurie Murdoch, Hannah Reuben, David Neild, and Sam Sullivan.