Mark Hinton – Consultant to WCM Legal, Carterton

 Past Chairman

Mark lives in Masterton with his wife Maria. They have three adult children (two of whom live in Australia and one in Wellington.) Mark and Maria also have two grandchildren (regrettably in  Australia) and a further additional grandchild is expected in Australia in the New Year. Mark completed his law degree through Victoria University of Wellington in the 1970s and following a stint for several years in both the Housing Corporation and as District Solicitor of the Department of Lands and Survey in Hamilton, Mark, and another practitioner and set up a firm in Hamilton in 1981. 

In 1989 Mark and his family headed south again and joined Keith McClure (many of you will know that Keith's wife Adrienne is Marks's wife Maria's sister) and others at Wollerman Cooke and McClure (now WCM LEGAL) in Carterton, Wairarapa where he is still in practice. WCM LEGAL is one of the founding firms of LANZ. The firm has four offices, Wellington, Greytown, Carterton, and Masterton, and is heavily reliant on technology to link them all together. Mark was privileged to be the inaugural recipient of the Te Toko Koru award which he says was quite a humbling experience given the caliber of LANZ membership and the time that many other members freely spend promoting and supporting LANZ. Joining the board enabled Mark to contribute something to LANZ and recognizes the work done by others from which his firm has benefited.

His interests in LANZ included assisting and participating in the further development and utilization of the Practice Managers group. In his view, Practice Managers are a priceless resource to our member firms and we should be doing everything we can to identify and develop initiatives for that group that will give an immediate flow-on effect to our member firm's bottom line.

In addition, as a former member of the IT committee some years ago, (the committee recommended Infinity Law to members) he believes the additional use of technology will assist member firms, one example being LANZ-wide compliance audit of AML requirements. Mark joined the board to contribute more to LANZ and was the  Chairman for LANZ from 2021 to 2022.