Welcome to Tim McBride Law

Auckland Lawyer Tim McBride has had a lengthy and varied legal career since the early 1970s. He has been actively engaged in a wide range of major legal issues as an advocate, author, barrister, commentator, consultant, presenter, and university lecturer. Tim is the author of the New Zealand Handbook of Civil Liberties (1973) and The New Zealand Civil Rights Handbook (1980) and (2001). A new edition was published in June 2010.

Tim is also co-author of the leading book on the Privacy Act 1993 – The Privacy Act: A Guide (1994), as well as being the author of two major official reports on privacy law in New Zealand - Privacy Review (1984) and Data Privacy: An Options Paper (1987).

Tim has been actively engaged in a range of community law organisations for many years. He co-founded the Legal Information Service Inc (LIS) in 1981, and chaired the organisation’s management committee for many years. LIS publishes the most authoritative New Zealand legal commentary on social security and related law – the loose-leaf Legal Resource Manual. Until recently Tim was the managing editor, as well as one of its contributors.

At Tim’s instigation LIS established a joint task force on mental health reform with the Mental Health Foundation (1982). During its 10-year existence, the task force published a number of influential reports, submissions and discussion papers (eg, the major report, Towards Mental Health Reform, 488pp (1983)). A number of the task force’s key recommendations were subsequently included in the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Act 1992.

Tim has been active in a number of human rights NGOs over the years. He is a past president and chairperson of the Auckland Council for Civil Liberties Inc (ACCL). Tim was one of the founding members of the Human Rights Foundation of Aotearoa / NZ Inc (HRF), launched by the then Governor-General, Dame Sylvia Cartwright, in 2001. He is currently the chairperson.

Tim was one of the founders of the Environmental Law Centre Inc in 1993, and subsequently one of the editors of its publication, the New Zealand Environmental Law Reporter. He was also the Deputy Director of the New Zealand Centre for Environmental Law at the University of Auckland, 1999-2002, as well as being on the editorial committee of the NZCEL’s major ongoing publication, the New Zealand Journal of Environmental Law.

Tim has been a legal commentator on radio and television, and in the print media, for over 30 years, especially in the field of civil rights. More recently, he has focussed much of his attention on privacy issues, in particular the emerging surveillance society in New Zealand.

In the capacity of a legal consultant, Tim has prepared reports for both national and international agencies. Examples of the latter include his Report  and Recommendations on Specific Legal Issues (1992), prepared for the Fiji National Environmental Management Project; and the Report on the Adequacy of New Zealand’s Privacy Law (2001), prepared for the European Commission, Brussels.

As a presenter, Tim has addressed a wide range of national, regional, and international conferences, workshops, and seminars. For example, in the privacy law area, these include presentations in Australia; Canada; Hong Kong; the UK; Germany; the Czech Republic; and Hungary.

In the Environmental law area, Tim has given presentations in a number of countries including Australia, Fiji, Samoa, Vanuatu and Jamaica.