Grant joined the Faculty of Law in 2002. His research and teaching specialty areas include New Zealand legal history, negotiation and mediation, and law and literature.
Grant is the recipient of a Victoria University of Wellington ‘Excellence in Teaching’ Award. He says his greatest achievement has been teaching law students for over 20 years and publishing research on legal history and mediation, including 6 books.
“I particularly enjoy the interaction between teaching and research ie. my teaching is informed by my research. I always wanted to be a teacher and also to research history, so academia is the perfect job for me.“
It was at Hillcrest High School that he discovered his love for history. “In 5th form (1990) I took history with Peter Thomas and soon decided that I wanted to work in a University teaching history (it ended up being in a law school teaching legal history – so close enough).
I also made the most of extracurricular activities at Hillcrest including the Shakespeare Club and Football. Two members of staff in particular made an impact on Grant. ”Peter Thomas helped to inspire my love of history and my English teacher, Linda Arthur, helped to foster my love of Shakespeare and Drama (I was one of the founding members of the Hillcrest Shakespeare
Club that Linda set up in 1990).”
Grant believes that co-education is a more realistic reflection of society than a single-sex school ie. in life you have to work with both men and women and co-educational schools prepare students for this.
Grant is an avid Historian and can often be heard on air with Jesse Mulligan (also former Student) on Radio New Zealand discussing not only historical legal gems but also all kinds of interesting snippets from NZ ‘s past.
