James' recent experience includes:

Class actions and complex litigation

• Acting for the Natural Hazards Commission on its defence of a high-value negligence class action related to Canterbury earthquake repairs.
• Acting for a cladding products manufacturer on its successful defence of several high-value negligence class actions.
• Acting as counsel for the representative plaintiff on the multi-million-dollar costs dispute arising from the stayed Feltex class action.
• Acting as counsel for a philanthropist in defamation proceedings and successfully obtaining an urgent pre-publication injunction against a media organisation and non-publication orders.
• Acting as counsel for trustees in a precedent-setting Supreme Court appeal concerning "trust busting".

Public law and regulatory disputes

• Acting as counsel for an electricity generator in judicial review proceedings challenging the new transmission pricing methodology (adopted in 2022).
• Acting as counsel for an electricity generator in an appeal about the application of scarcity pricing under the Electricity Industry Participation Code 2010 following the 9 August 2021 grid emergency.
• Acting as counsel for Auckland Airport on its successful judicial review of a non-notified resource consent for a high-density housing development within a regulated aircraft noise zone.
• Acting as counsel for the Accident Compensation Corporation on its successful defence of judicial review proceedings challenging its compliance with an internal policy document.
• Acting as counsel on a recent Supreme Court appeal concerning freedom of speech.
• Acting for the Crown on its defence of the high-profile judicial review of the March 2020 Alert Level 4 lockdown.