SBN Business Networking Event to be held Thursday 26 September 2013

Villages: Vaiala, Fagaloa and Faga.
Qualifications: DipHSc (Otago), LLB (Auckland)

Daughter of Saute Sapolu and Maluoaiga Brown

Iuni attended Leififi Intermediate and then Samoa College. She obtained a Samoan Government Scholarship to attend school in New Zealand, where she completed her 7th form year (year 13) at Marlborough Girls College, Marlborough.
Her scholarship determined her to pursue tertiary education in Home Science as only male students were awarded scholarships for Law. Iuni attended Otago University where she completed her Diploma in Home Science in 1976, qualifying as a New Zealand Registered Dietician.

Iuni returned to Samoa working for the South Pacific Commission as a Dietician at Mootootua Hospital. This allowed her to travel the Pacific including New Caledonia, Kiribati, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and others.

Iuni moved to New Zealand in 1981. Whilst raising two young children (Eliota and Josefina), she became a full-time student in Law at the University of Auckland.  She graduated in 1986 with her LLB and was then admitted to the High Court of New Zealand in 1987. She worked for the late Sanirivi Muliaumaseali'i, who was one of the first Samoans to operate a law firm in New Zealand (on Karangahape Road, Auckland City).

In the same year her daughter Suluama was born, she founded her law firm 'Sapolu Law' in 1989 in Manurewa, South Auckland.  She has trained over 20 lawyers who have gone on to practice in Samoa, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Tonga and Korea. Some include the Honourable Tongan Minister for Police, Prisons and Fire Services and Minister for Revenue Services, Siosifa Tu'utafaiva; former New Zealand Families Commissioner and lawyer Sandra Alofivae and Honourable Samoan Associate Minister of Finance and Lawyer Tuisa Tasi Patea. She has also provided pro-bono services through the Citizens Advice Bureau, Manurewa, since 1989.  She has worked in a range of areas of law particularly criminal law, family law, immigration law, traffic law, property law and intellectual property law. She was also admitted as a lawyer to the Supreme Court of Samoa in 2006 and admitted as a lawyer to the Supreme Court of Queensland, Australia in 2012.

She has 7 children, (3 of her own, 4 under her guardianship, all aged between 15 to 32 years) and one grandson. Her children have gone on to pursue law, medicine, carpentry and professional-sports.
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She is  also co-owner of Apaula Heights Lounge Bar and Restaurant in Samoa.