Pooja Sundar
Pooja Sundar is a Partner at Dalley Sundar and one of New Zealand’s leading specialist immigration and humanitarian lawyers, with a practice centred on complex immigration matters, litigation and appellate work. She practises across the full spectrum of immigration and protection law, with particular expertise in residence and deportation appeals, refugee and protection claims, family violence immigration pathways, and High Court litigation. With an appellate and litigation practice spanning specialist tribunals through to the High Court, Pooja brings rigorous strategic advocacy to every level of proceedings. She holds a Master of Laws from the University of Auckland and is legal aid registered.
Pooja’s public law and litigation practice is a distinguishing feature of her work. She advises on statutory powers, public law principles, and evidence and credibility frameworks across deportation and residence appeals and High Court proceedings, and led public interest litigation during the COVID-19 border closure concerning the separation of families.
She regularly participates in MBIE policy consultations, contributing specialist practitioner insight to immigration policy development and reform. She has represented the Refugee Council of New Zealand in two significant government-led review processes — the Victoria Casey KC Review on the Restriction of Movement of Asylum Claimants and the Review on the Detention of Asylum Seekers — and has drafted submissions for The Law Association of New Zealand on Immigration Amendment Bills. She is a current member of both the Law Association’s Immigration and Refugee Committee and its Public and Administrative Law Committee. In the professional regulatory sphere, Pooja sits on one of the New Zealand Law Society’s Standards Committees and represents lawyers and immigration advisers in disciplinary proceedings, bringing the same rigorous litigation approach to professional conduct matters.
Beyond her litigation practice, Pooja is recognised for her work on novel and complex matters at the boundaries of immigration and nationality law, including successfully supporting an overseas citizen in obtaining New Zealand citizenship through multi-generational DNA evidence. She presents regularly for the New Zealand Law Society and LegalWise Seminars across New Zealand and Australia on topics spanning judicial review, appellate advocacy, family violence and immigration intersections, and the exercise of ministerial discretion, and is a confirmed speaker at the NZ Legal Symposium 2026. Pooja supervises research for the Shama Ethnic Women’s Trust on migrant women and the Family Court, and brings a trauma-informed and culturally responsive approach to all aspects of her practice.
