Davenports Law is a quietly ambitious, boldly progressive law firm with the depth of more than 100 years of history and a breadth of connections across Auckland.

Tammy McLeod, the firm’s Managing Director and principal for nearly 20 years, one of New Zealand’s leading trust and asset structuring specialists, and a past President of the Auckland Women Lawyers’ Association, leads a team of around 25 legal staff. The firm serves its loyal and continually growing client base of families and businesses in trust law and wealth protection, commercial and property law. The team and its clients share a common approach: understated, successful and highly respected.

As part of its deliberate growth, and to service demand, Davenports wishes to attract lawyers to join each of their key practice areas. Ideally:

• a 4 - 6 year private client lawyer;

• a 3 - 5 year commercial lawyer; and

• a 2 - 4 year property lawyer.

The Directors – Tammy, Stephanie Irons and Jeremy Parsons – have intentionally created an environment in which they genuinely want to work. They take their work seriously but themselves less so, prioritising family, thoughtfulness and generosity. This is reflected in the firm’s culture, including: 

• a “near gold” standard for work-life balance – no expectation to take calls or check emails after hours; working focused, efficient core office hours instead;

• flexibility for personal appointments and priorities, with some WFH for concentrated work;

• flexible start times (@7.30 – 9am) for ease of travel to the Albany office, with ample free parking;

• a 5 billable hours daily budget, with work shared freely among the integrated and collaborative team;

• a varied package of generous financial benefits including highly competitive salaries and achievable bonus structures; and

• a well-stocked kitchen, regular team get-togethers, and a contemporary workspace, set in a low-rise building among trees.

This strong while gentle culture does not come at the expense of:

•  interesting legal work, where the focus is on being a trusted advisor to families, business and property owners, balancing legal, commercial, personal and practical considerations;

• the right balance of autonomy and guidance to quickly develop strong legal skills;

• priority for learning, by lawyers and clients alike, with Directors active in Law Association education and development and team members regularly writing brief articles and presenting seminars; and

• priority for career and wider life goals, with Directors actively advancing people at all levels through the firm, along with helping the team achieve family, travel and other goals.

Trust and wealth protection team - Tammy and Stephanie are seeking a lawyer with around 4 - 6 years’ relevant legal experience to focus on relationship property agreements (both entering and exiting relationships), trust structuring to preserve assets, wills, EPAs, estates and to have some oversight of refinancings and conveyances where they relate to trusts.

Commercial team – Jeremy seeks a lawyer with around 3 - 5 years’ relevant legal experience to work with private business owners across a variety of sectors, scale and complexity, managing acquisitions and sales, drafting key business contracts and ideally providing some non-contentious employment advice.

Property team – the Directors are seeking a lawyer with around 2 – 4 years’ property experience, to support and learn from a number of the firm’s senior lawyers, doing a broad range of work across residential, commercial and rural properties, for a broad range of clients from first home buyers to seasoned investors and developers, and including sales and purchases, subdivisions, building contracts, and refinancings etc.

Regardless of practice area, you will:

• have the warmth, curiosity and care to engage with clients and the presence and good sense to win their confidence;

• bring urgency to move matters toward completion;

• demonstrate the skills, relevant experience and appetite to take matters as far as you can before engaging with the Directors and highly experienced team for guidance;

• support and celebrate the wider team;

• participate in plentiful client and community networking opportunities; and

• be excited to join this under the radar, powerhouse firm, honing your broad legal skills toward a specialist focus, and/or stepping up to the next level of your professional development.

Given the time of year, the Directors are keen to speak with people at the earliest opportunity, either to finalise before Christmas or to provide people an option to consider over the summer holidays. They are flexible about start dates throughout Q1 2026.

For questions or expressions of interest, please contact me at the earliest opportunity.

Victoria Fletcher 021 300 982 / victoria@victoriafletcher.co.nz.

Applications should be submitted via Seek. Only direct applications from lawyers will be considered.