Honourable Justice Stephen Kós

Justice Stephen Kós graduated LLB (Hons) from Victoria University in 1981, where he won the Chapman Tripp Prize.  He lectured at the Law School for three years before graduating LLM from Cambridge University in 1985. He became a partner in Perry Wylie Pope & Page in 1985, and then in Russell McVeagh in 1988.  He joined the independent bar in 2005 and was appointed Queen's Counsel in 2007.  His principal fields of practice were commercial, equity and environmental litigation.  Prior to judicial appointment he was the Pro-Chancellor of Massey University, Chairman of the NZX Disciplinary Tribunal and director of a number of private companies. 

He was appointed to the High Court in April 2011, sitting at Wellington, and for two years also acted as an earthquake List Judge in Christchurch.  He was appointed Judge of the Court of Appeal in September 2015, President of that Court in July 2016 and a Judge of the Supreme Court in April 2022.

Justice Kós has particular interests in the fields of contract, equity and legal history.  He is a Distinguished Fellow at the Victoria University Law School, having taught restitution, evidence and civil procedure there part-time.  He also co-teaches a course on equity at Melbourne University Law School, where he is the James Merralls Visiting Fellow 2022/23.