The first lawyer

What’s the difference between a bull and a lawyer?   
A lawyer charges more.
I’m sure we have all heard lawyer jokes - there are plenty around.  Despite the jokes, everyone wants a lawyer on their side when there is trouble.
The first lawyer in New Zealand was Richard Davies Hanson, who stepped off the boat in Wellington, New Zealand in 1840 and the law firm he founded is still going today.
Hanson was born December 6, 1805, in London, the second son of Benjamin, a fruit merchant who nevertheless managed to have Richard go to a private school, and Elizabeth.  He was admitted as a solicitor in 1828, practising in London where he became a pupil of Edward Gibbon Wakefield.
After working in Canada, he came to New Zealand having been appointed by the New Zealand company to draft legal documents and seek investors.
He came to New Zealand aboard the Cuba.  A bit of a rebel, he helped colonists organise protests against the company’s delay in making land available. It ended with a ruling that  the company's land agreements with Maori chiefs should be confined to blocks of 100,000 acres (40,469 ha) in which individual settlers were to select their sections.
 He worked as a Crown prosecutor and set up a law firm with Robert Hart and Patrick Buckley  - who went on to the Supreme Court.
Hart went on to become a politician and Hanson went to Australia.  
The firm went on to be called Hart and Buckley then after being joined by Charles Treadwell, the name underwent several changes over the years as it merged with other firms before being known just as Treadwell’s - with its home in Panama Street in Wellington having been its offices for over 100 years before it moved to its current offices in Johnston Street.
In Australia Hanson served as Advocate General and Attorney General, then became Premier from 1857.  Later he became the Chief Justice..
He married Ann Scanlon in 1851 and was knighted in 1869.
Hanson died on March 4, 1976 and is buried in West Terrace Cemetery in Adelaide.

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