Trust Lawyer
45 years experience
As a trust lawyer, John Brown has a wide range of experience in the field of trusts spanning over 45 years. This experience as a trust lawyer includes: extensive trust authorship, assisting other trust lawyers and barristers with trust litigation and advice, working as a commercial trust lawyer and the use of trusts in the important, but not well known area of business protection and succession planning.
In his capacity as a specialist trust lawyer advising other professionals, John has found solutions to complex or difficult situations involving trusts where other trust lawyers may have sought carefully for answers. This has included assisting senior barristers to obtain successful litigation results and finding solutions to challenging trust and commercial matters.
“I have been impressed with John’s acumen in analyzing and identifying the relevant issues in a complex area of law, and with his diligence in coming forward with appropriate legal pathways and supporting authority to provide an answer or way forward for clients or professional advisers”
Peter McKenzie CNZM QC
Trust Lawyer Expertise
His extensive experience in a broad range of trust-related matters has equipped John to provide expertise as a specialist trust lawyer. An area of specialist expertise John offers is the commercial use of trusts to hold substantial life insurance policies to provide business protection and succession planning solutions. In this area, even experienced trust lawyers may have limited experience and a specialist trust lawyer with a sound knowledge of life insurance products is required. This is particularly so where the insurance may create many millions of dollars on claim. John’s commercial and specialist trust lawyer experience has enabled him to assist a market-leading life insurance company and its international reinsurance company to develop a targeted life insurance product for the business market. This product provided cover which enabled businessmen and women to take increasing life insurance cover based on business financial need without further health evidence - the product was understood to be a global first. Such insurance is commonly held in trust to ensure that the substantial cash created on a claim is used as intended. John’s expertise as a trust lawyer has included providing the documentation supporting these arrangements.
Publication
John’s experience as a trust lawyer led him to initiate an official law-reporting series, the New Zealand Trust Reports (NZTR) of which he is editor/author, published by the tax and commercial law publisher, CCH NZ. NZTR reports the latest leading cases from the New Zealand High Court and appellate Courts and equips trust lawyers and those working in the area of trusts, such as professional trustees, with the most up-to-date court decisions concerning trusts. This resource is widely used in providing advice and assistance to other trust lawyers and professionals, equipping and providing them with an important market edge. NZTR is also important for understanding this developing area of law, particularly in light of the new Trusts Act 2019 which will generate ongoing court decisions interpreting the new legislation.
“Through CCH NZ [part of the international Wolters Kluwer group] John has produced an ongoing collection of trust cases and edited these cases with head note summaries of each case and an index and digest of cases as they are reported. I have personally found this source book invaluable and I expect many other practitioners would agree”.
Peter McKenzie CNZM QC