About Us

The Arthur Noble Limited Story

Nearly 20 years ago, Bronwyn Arthur was working at the New Zealand Government’s “legal firm”, Crown Law, as “the resource management expert”.  Patricia Noble was working in the legal team at Child, Youth and Family.  Our paths crossed over the construction of youth justice facilities – obtaining designations for these most unpopular facilities and then managing contracts for builds in awkward positions – on top of a potential earthquake fault line in Rotorua, on defence land and next to a prison in Rolleston and over a sewer line in Auckland.  Together we helped make it happen.

Fast-forward to 2012, Patricia was living near Nelson with her husband and two children and Bronwyn was in charge of the legal team of the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (CERA). Fortunately, Patricia could make her family circumstances work and came to Christchurch each week to lead CERA’s legal work on construction.  Over the next four years we worked towards rebuilding Christchurch after the Canterbury earthquakes: drafting the 100-day plan for Christchurch Central, identifying residential red zones, establishing the residential advisory service to help with insurance issues, drafting demolition contracts and resolving disputes including asbestos contamination, aiding recovery plans, preparing construction projects including novel insurance and payment of “subbies” provisions, as well as giving effect to numerous other instructions including helping to wind up CERA. Bronwyn worked to establish the AMI Stadium and Patricia made her first appearance in the Environment Court on Hagley Oval.

April 2016 was always going to be the end date for us as part of CERA in Christchurch. We took the precaution of doing the New Zealand Law Society “Stepping Up” course in 2015 – but the idea of Arthur Noble was a bit of a joke – “Oh yes, Mr Arthur Noble, nice elderly gentleman but not really up to it in these hi-tech days.  He does have two nice ladies helping him – perhaps one of them could help you …?”.  We even discovered there was a Mr Arthur Noble; sadly he was killed during WW1 in 1915. Well CERA did end and so we went to work for Arthur Noble.

Arthur Noble Limited commenced on 15 July 2016. The first instructions were from the Department of Conservation which wanted assistance to deal with a backlog of legal queries and cover over the holiday period. Since then Arthur Noble Limited has worked for several Departments with contracts for locums and specific projects. It has also worked for local government, educational institutions, iwi and individuals. Arthur Noble Limited has had a national practice with clients in Auckland, Taranaki, Wellington, Nelson and Canterbury.

As Bronwyn and Patricia have both had considerable experience within Government, we looked to utilise that background. Our clients have found this is very efficient and effective as they do not have to bring us up to speed with Government processes and often we can answer questions directly based on our previous experience. As senior lawyers, we endeavour to be part of the team and to pass on our knowledge, including being mentors.  The advantage is that gaps can be filled for a short time without the complications of employment contracts or secondment agreements and we can be relied upon to get the work done while understanding the pressures which come from being within Government.

As Arthur Noble Limited approaches its first anniversary, we are confident that we have made the right choice to set up our firm with a model of providing locum services and project advice. It was a new approach to providing legal services, but our first year has shown there is a need for this flexibility.