Why are so few women in the senior levels of law?

The Wellington Women’s Lawyers Association in conjunction with Victoria University held an open panel discussion on Suffrage Day, 19 September, to celebrate the 100th year anniversary of Victoria’s first female law graduate, Harriette Vine. In celebrating Ms Vine’s 1913 graduation – she would go on to spend her entire career working…

Hard work, not gender, the key to success

Pip Greenwood is one of New Zealand’s most successful corporate lawyers. A partner of Russell McVeagh, she has won the New Zealand Dealmaker of the Year three times at the ALB Australasian Law Awards and is currently working on the Meridian IPO. When LawTalk contacted her to talk about the progress…

Three barriers to women climbing the seniority ladder

Why are there fewer and fewer women the more senior the level you go in a profession? This question has been looked into by Dr Julia Porter, a member of the Ministry of Women’s Affair’s team which has released a report earlier this month titled Realising the opportunity: Addressing New Zealand’s…

Who is Harriette Vine?

Ethel Benjamin has the honour of being New Zealand’s first female lawyer but there are notable lawyers who followed immediately after Ethel, including Dame Harriette Vine. Harriette Joanna Vine was born in Dunedin on 6 April 1878 to English immigrants Edward and Sarah Vine. She attended Anderson’s Bay School, and later…

Tips for lawyers & practices

The Law Society of New South Wales has, over the past two years, been proactive in finding ways to support women who wish to remain in, return to or advance within the profession. The numbers of female lawyers in the state has grown from 20% in 1988 to 47% in…

From the Law Society

This year marks the 120th anniversary of women’s suffrage in New Zealand. When women won the right to vote in 1893 there were no female lawyers. Dunedin’s Ethel Benjamin’s admission in 1897 would make New Zealand the first in the British Empire to have a practising female lawyer but for most…

Law study leads to stress

Over 60% of New Zealand law students believe their studies have resulted in high stress levels, according to a New Zealand Law Students’ Association (NZLSA) national survey. The NZLSA has released results of a mental wellness survey of 880 law students from each of the country’s six law schools. It…

The bad old days

With a few columns down I thought to myself it was time to get both a little more technical and perhaps even a little more controversial. In calling this piece The bad old days I want to look at the judicial relationship with the law of evidence – effectively lamenting what…

Breaking the rules can be good for you

This is a question I was pondering recently after confessing to a major rule-breaking incident in my childhood and the impact that had on me in my adult life. I can hear you all wondering about what I could have possibly done that was so bad. Well I forged my…

Global law firm pricing trends

On my decision to exit full-time legal practice and relocate to London to pursue full-time pricing consultancy work, I must have appeared to many at the time to have been barking mad. The first year here has been a roller coaster. Aside from invitations to speak at global events like the…

Moving towards CPD

The Continuing Professional Development Plan and Record (CPDPR) The CPDPR recognises learning is an ongoing process. You: identify your learning needs; make a general plan for addressing these needs, assigning priorities and identifying the best way of meeting them; undertake specific activities to carry out the general plan; and …

New Mergers & Acquisitions Guidelines

The Commerce Commission released new Mergers and Acquisitions Guidelines on 24 July. The guidelines are a useful summary for businesses and their advisors of the commission’s approach to the substantial lessening of competition test for mergers and business acquisitions under s47 of the Commerce Act 1986. They also usefully explain the…

Law Foundation project helps retain specialist youth advocates

A Law Foundation-funded project provided critical evidence that helped overturn plans to remove the specialist training requirement for people who work with youth offenders. Alison Cleland’s research conclusively showed the importance and complexity of youth advocates’ work – and the value of retaining specialist training for them. Ms Cleland’s research, published…

Registrations now open for CLANZmini

It has been said that a leader is one who “knows the way, goes the way and shows the way”. At CLANZmini 2013, the focus is on leadership in the in-house environment and how you can have influence in your organisation and help lead the way. A fantastic line up of…

Lawyers Complaints Service: Fined for failing to comply with standards committee order

Failing to comply with a previous lawyers standards committee order has seen an Auckland lawyer, J, being censured and fined $5,000. The initial complaint was that J had refused to return a deposit held in his trust account after a property sale and purchase had not proceeded. J was the sole…

Lawyers Complaints Service: Fined for improper use of legal process

A lawyer, D, who issued statutory demands at the same time as proceedings were under way for summary judgment for the same debts, has been fined $1,000 by a lawyers standards committee. His conduct was found to be unsatisfactory. D had acted for the former husband in the context of matrimonial…

Lawyers Complaints Service: Fined for overcharging

Despite a lawyer, E, and two complainants reaching a settlement in a costs revision dispute, a lawyers standards committee nonetheless fined E $2,000 for overcharging. After E acted in a deceased estate, two of the deceased’s family members wrote to the Lawyers Complaints Service to see if the fees charged by…

Lawyers Complaints Service: Percentage contingency fees not permitted

Michael Meyrick of Auckland has been fined $2,000 after a lawyers standards committee made findings of unsatisfactory conduct against him. He had arranged to charge a fee that was a fixed percentage of any wages recovered and he had taken the filing fee from each client, but had then failed…

Auckland dominates student comps

Auckland University dominated this year’s New Zealand Law Student competitions, held in Christchurch last month. Auckland teams won four of the five competitions and one was runner up in the fifth event following the finals day on 31 August. That gave the law school the President’s Prize for best all-round…

People

Australian lawyer Julie Read has been appointed chief executive and director of the Serious Fraud Office. Ms Read has been appointed for a term of three years and will take up her role on 21 October. Currently based in Hobart, Ms Read has over 20 years’ experience as a litigator,…