Borrin Foundation – Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga Postgraduate Scholarship for Nerys Udy

About Nerys

Tāku pane ki uta, āku waewae ki tae, tāku kaika ki Otawiri e tau nei.   Tēnei a Mako Tēnei a Irakehu Ka Tarawewehi o Wairewa Hao nui!   Nerys is an uri of Ngāi Tahu and also has whakapapa to Cornish settlers and Zimbabwean immigrants of European descent. She credits these intersecting identities with her passion for developing the law as a tool for communities to live well together. Nerys graduated from Ōtakou Whakaihu Waka | The University of Otago with an LLB (Hons) and BA in History and Māori Studies and was admitted to the bar in 2021.  Since graduating, Nerys has clerked for Chief Justice Winkelmann and is now practicing as a junior barrister at Thorndon Chambers. She has acted in a number of cases involving human rights, the Treaty of Waitangi and indigenous law and these interests are reflected in a number of publications and presentations. Nerys will explore these interests further through postgraduate study. She hopes to use the knowledge she gains to meaningfully engage in the development of law that serves all people in our society.

What Nerys is studying

Nerys plans to pursue an LLM in the USA, with a focus on legal theory and constitutional law. Aotearoa New Zealand’s legal landscape is currently in a state of flux due to an ongoing confluence of tikanga Māori and settler law. Nerys’ study plans are motivated by a desire to engage with the role of theory in informing the relationship between these two streams of law in our society. In particular, Nerys is interested in rights jurisprudence and hopes to explore different theoretical approaches to balancing and reconciling legal rights and values arising from different cultural universes. Following study, she hopes to contribute to the dialogue over this confluence of laws and to the protection of indigenous rights in Aotearoa New Zealand, both as a practicing lawyer and through further academic work.

Scholarship amount

$60,000