Writer Patricia Grace's legal challenge against the Kapiti Expressway is due to be heard in February.
She and her whanau are asking the Maori Land Court to rule that a portion of ancestral land where road will be built in Waikanae should be made a Maori Reservation.
The author, of Ngati Toa, Ngati Raukawa, and Te Ati Awa descent, plans to present evidence based on whakapapa, history and culture.
Ms Grace says she does not have a mandate from her children to dispose of the land.