AUTLSS Paper Presentation Final

The 2026 campus Paper Presentation season has wrapped up on a high.

On Wednesday 3 June, AUTLSS hosted its LexisNexis Paper Presentation Final — the final campus competition of the year — with two outstanding finalists competing for the opportunity to represent AUT on the national and international stage.

After a compelling first round, the evening came down to:

Anne Kitt — “Opening the Door on Family Violence: Aligning Civil Protection Orders with the State’s Protective Role”

David Kim — “Duty to Rescue in New Zealand”

Both finalists impressed the judges with their ability to distil complex legal scholarship into clear, confident, and persuasive oral advocacy.

In the end, David Kim was named the 2026 AUTLSS Campus Champion.
David now joins fellow campus winners from across the country and will travel to Adelaide in July to compete at the ALSA Paper Presentation Competition, before returning to New Zealand in August for the national final at the NZLSA Conference.

A sincere thank you to our judges — Judge Thomas, Deborah Manning, and Gogo Ntor — for their time, expertise, and the difficult task of selecting a winner. Thank you also to the AUTLSS Competition Officers for delivering such a well-run event, and to everyone who came along to support.

The 2026 campus season has been exceptional. The future of the legal profession is not just promising — it is already here.