The moral panic of the Hulme-Parker murder case; the many injustices of the Peter Ellis trials; the question of accountability in the CTV building collapse; the tragedy of the Pike River mine explosion and the demand for regulatory responsibility – from a childhood in rural Canterbury and the mud of the rugby field to the panelled walls of courtrooms, King’s Counsel Nigel Hampton’s needle-sharp, compelling memoir spans some of New Zealand’s most significant cases.

After more than six decades in the legal profession, including stints as Chief Justice in the Kingdom of Tonga and commissioner with the International Criminal Court in The Hague, this consummate storyteller offers a forensic examination of a career ‘striving to achieve right, correcting wrongs, through the law’.

His tale, with every deft twist and turn, reveals the heart, humour and acuity of one of New Zealand’s most respected defence lawyers who has influenced major changes in the legal profession. Underpinning his story is a clear thread: a conviction that the law matters most when it improves lives and strengthens justice – as such, A Life Forensic describes a career in which ‘the promptings of humanity’ are writ large.