"I am very happy to have made it this far" - Nick Sage '95
Tuesday, 29 August 2017
Nick Sage '95 recalls his time at Auckland Grammar very well. A bright, academic student, Nick was in the 'A' stream through his five years at the School and the many classes listening to his teachers talk freely on subjects they knew intimately, inadvertently prepared him for tertiary studies.

"Some of my teachers were already lecturing at a university level, so rather than following textbooks, giving dictation, or doing drills, they left students to take their own notes as they saw fit."

Now based in the United Kingdom, Nick is an assistant professor at the London School of Economics (LSE), and focuses on the areas of property and contract law, private law theory and legal philosophy. Nick lectures to groups of up to 200 undergraduate students on his specialty subjects, as well as taking smaller, interactive classes. "For someone like me who enjoys trying to understand the law, this is basically the perfect job."

A lot of Nick's role at LSE is concentrated around research of his chosen subjects - "My research involved drafting papers and discussing them at workshops or conferences, before they were eventually published in academic journals."

With continental Europe on his doorstep, Nick has done some extensive travelling, which started back in Form 7 when he was a student on the Western Heritage Tour. "Over the years I have backpacked through Southeast Asia and the Americas. I also lived in Canada, while I completed my doctorate on the theory of contract law at the University of Toronto. I flatted with a couple of graduate students and rode my bicycle each day to university through the snow!"

After graduating from Grammar, Nick studied at the University of Auckland, gaining a Bachelor of Law with Honours as well as a Bachelor of Arts, majoring in Politics. He was the editor-in-chief of the Auckland University Law Review, and received prizes in law and political studies.

Nick completed his Master's degree from the New York University School of Law, which he attended as a Hauser Scholar. Founded in 1995, the Hauser Scholars Programme rewards recipients with a full-tuition scholarship and a living stipend for one year at NYU.

Securing his role at LSE, a permanent role in his field of study, was a huge accomplishment for Nick, something he definitely doesn't take for granted. "You have to pass a number of milestones just to get your foot in the door in academia, but they require a large amount of work. Things could easily have turned out worse than they did, so I am very happy to have made it this far."