Neil Ross Campbell has been appointed as a Judge of the Supreme Court, with David Gary Johnstone named to the Court of Appeal, both effective 16 July 2026.
Attorney-General Chris Bishop announced the judicial appointments.
Campbell joined the High Court bench in 2020 and was named to the Court of Appeal in 2024. He completed a BCom and LLB (Honours) at the University of Auckland in 1992. After two years at Bell Gully Buddle Weir, he went to the United Kingdom where he received a first-class LLM from Cambridge and taught at Nottingham. He returned to New Zealand in 1995 to take an Associate Professor role at Auckland Law School, beginning independent bar work part-time from 1998 while continuing academic duties before switching to full-time work as a civil litigator in 2008, handling contract, property, company and trust disputes. He was appointed Queen's Counsel in 2013 and chairs the New Zealand Council of Legal Education on the Chief Justice's nomination.
Johnstone completed a BCom/LLB (Honours) at Auckland in 1991 and began work at Bell Gully in commercial litigation. After receiving an LLM (Honours) from Cambridge in 1994 and leaving Bell Gully in 1996, he took a position at Meredith Connell in 1998, conducting District Court and High Court jury trials, regulatory prosecutions and Proceeds of Crime Act civil cases. He was made partner in 2005, working on criminal prosecutions and appeals including organised crime, corruption, serious fraud and national security matters before joining the independent Bar in 2022, working in criminal law and commercial compliance. Johnstone joined the High Court bench in 2023.