Keegan Jones. Photo: RNZ / Peter de Graaf
A 26-year-old Northland lawyer has been named in Forbes magazine's "30 Under 30" list of the world's most influential young achievers of 2025.
Keegan Jones is the founder of a charitable trust providing free, Māori-centric legal clinics in Kerikeri, Whangārei and Christchurch.
The service has so far helped almost 600 people who couldn't afford a lawyer or didn't know where to turn for help with legal problems, relating mostly to family, land and criminal issues.
Jones (Ngāti Hine, Ngāti Porou) said he started The Free Legal Clinics Project for the same reason he decided to become a lawyer.
"Coming from Northland, I saw the vast disparities among people, specifically minority groups such as Māori, who are disproportionately represented within our justice system.
"That was one of the main reasons I pursued law in the first place… and the reasons for coming back to Northland were to grow my career and help my people."
Jones said he was still a law clerk when Northland's only free legal clinic closed down.
That spurred him to partner with Ngāti Hine Health Trust and 155 Community Law to provide Whangārei's first iwi-based legal clinic.
That, too, closed in late 2023, so Jones set up The Free Legal Clinics Project with Whangārei Citizens Advice Bureau and Hihiaua Cultural Centre, which provided a te ao Māori setting.
The clinics expanded in June last year to Kerikeri, partnering with the Far North Citizens Advice Bureau and Te Whatu Ora, and then to Christchurch, with the help of Canterbury University and Rehua Marae.
Jones said he hoped being included on the list would put a spotlight on the work of his peers, partner organisations and volunteers across the country who made the free legal clinics possible.
It was also a tribute to the people who used the service, he said.
"Everything we do is for the people, and it's free, but at the same time, the people obviously have liked our model and continue to come back, or they've referred friends and family or whānau to come to our clinics because of the model we operate under, which is a te ao Māori-centric approach."
Recognition from Forbes would put the free clinics on an international stage, he said.
"It shows there are indigenous peoples who have said enough is enough, they want to provide free legal information, and they're not relying on other charitable organisations or Crown entities to provide those services," Jones said.
"They're standing up and doing their own thing, saying, 'Okay, this is how I would want my whānau to receive information or services which are free', and then taking action and doing it in an indigenous way… This kaupapa is so important and it's getting recognition, which is awesome."
Jones, who was raised on the Far North's Karikari Peninsula and attended Springbank School in Kerikeri, said he had "no idea" who had nominated him for the list.
His day job is with WRMK Lawyers in Whangārei.
The Forbes 30 Under 30 list was first published in 2011.
These days the magazine publishes separate lists dedicated to the US, Asia (including Oceania), Europe and Africa.
Keegan Jones is the only New Zealander in the social impact category of this year's Asia list.
Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
