Where do you work, what’s your role?
I’m an in-house employment lawyer at Fisher & Paykel Healthcare. My official job title is Workplace Relations Business Partner.
Where did you study?
University of Auckland, where I completed an LLB (Hons).
What’s been your career to date?
I’m five years post qualification. My first role was with Chen Palmer Partners – now rebranded to the Public Law Toolbox Chambers – where I stayed for 12 months. After that, I joined LangtonHudsonButcher as an employment law specialist. Two partners in that firm, Emma Butcher and Angela Evans, left in 2021 to start their firm BE Employment Law, which I joined and stayed at for two years. In October 2023, I made the jump to working in-house at Fisher & Paykel Healthcare.
Outside of work, I’ve been performing comedy for 10 years. I started doing open mics in 2013, and that year I got to the finals of the national Raw Comedy Quest. In 2018, my best friend, Matthew Parker, and I started a musical comedy duo called Tough Tiger Fist, inspired by classic Kiwi acts like Flight of the Conchords and the Topp Twins. We started performing at local Auckland open mics and festivals and quickly started developing a name for ourselves in the industry. This year, we were nominated for the prestigious Billy T Award. In May, at the New Zealand International Comedy Festival, we will be performing our Billy T Award-nominated show, Star Crossed Brothers, a hilarious mystery-thriller-whodunnitcomedy-jukebox musical. We were also nominated last year for breakout performer and best live comedy show at the New Zealand Comedy Guild Awards.
How long have you been involved with The Law Association committees, and which committees have you worked with?
I’ve been the convenor of the Next Gen committee, which supports lawyers with up to seven years’ post-qualification experience, since November 2022.
At the time, I was approached by a former Chen Palmer colleague, Zong-Pei Zhao, who had joined The Law Association as a Committee Secretary, to join the committee as convenor.
Why is committee work important?
Connections and professional development. Based on my experience of working in small and medium firms, you might only work with one or two other junior lawyers. And in those circumstances, you can feel a little bit isolated or unconnected from your peers in the wider industry. In my first few years, I made an effort to go to both the New Zealand Law Society’s Auckland Young Lawyers, and The Law Association’s Newly Suited, events, and always got something out of just meeting and hanging out with other lawyers who were in my age group and doing the same things that I was doing. It just made me a little bit more connected with my peers. And I think that really helped me make friends when I was first starting out.
On the CPD front, if you’re with a big firm, you’re probably doing most of your CPD in-house. It’s not always the case with smaller firms, and definitely not for in-house legal teams. So for me, I’m relying on my Law Association committee to take care of most of my CPD and learning as well as most of my collegiality needs.
How do The Law Association committees make a difference?
Through events and connections, and CPD. Our committee’s CPD isn’t focused on a particular practice area, it’s generally focused on topics that lawyers in the early stages of their careers are interested in. The other way we make a difference is through submissions to government and public bodies on topics of interest to junior lawyers. We’ve done a couple of submissions on public consultations that we think are affecting young lawyers. For example, the New Zealand Law Society’s draft climate change policy and the Ministry of Justice’s digital strategy for courts and tribunals.
How do you see the role of a committee convenor? What specific skills do you think a convenor needs?
It’s about facilitating discussion and empowering the committee to do what it needs to do. And the obvious things like making sure the meeting runs on time and that everyone gets a chance to have their say on things. Everyone on the committee has their own ideas and things they want to make happen. So it’s making sure that you empower people to put their ideas forward to the committee.
What is your biggest frustration as a convenor?
My frustration comes from a good place. Committee members are often very passionate about helping people and often have strong opinions about the best way to do something. And the challenge as a convener is to navigate people’s different opinions and come to some kind of consensus.
What’s been the most notable achievement or biggest focus of your committee over the past few years? Why was that important?
Our committee hasn’t been necessarily focused on one thing. We’ve been doing a lot of different things. Early on we created some resources for people going through the admissions process for the Bar. We are very proud of the committee’s work on that project. Another particularly successful thing was our recent CPD session “Inside the In-House Experience”. It was for people early in their careers and explained the difference between being in-house and in private practice. We’ve written a lot of submissions, maybe four or five, throughout the year for various public consultations on matters of interest to Next Gen lawyers, including the Ministry of Justice’s digital strategy for courts and tribunals.
Over the past year, has your committee made submissions on a parliamentary bill or any consultation paper?
Yes, as mentioned above.
What would you say to anyone thinking of becoming involved in a Law Association committee?
If you’re thinking about it, do it! We need more committee members. The more people involved with the committee, the more stuff we can put out to members, and the more value we can provide. We would like more people to join us. One thing that we really want is more out-of-Auckland members because currently, almost everything that we’re doing has had a home in Auckland. We’re a national organisation and we want to have a national focus. We currently have one member from Palmerston North, but we’d like to have a couple more.
What’s the biggest issue facing your practice area at the moment? And how does that affect lawyers and their clients?
Keeping it to newly or recently qualified lawyers, the big issues are work-life balance, career dissatisfaction, and often dissatisfaction with pay. People working really long hours, but not actually having really high salaries. I think there are major challenges and issues for young practitioners around workplace culture, with bullying, and in some unfortunate cases, sexual harassment. Those things haven’t gone away.
What’s the best-kept secret about The Law Association?
That there’s a lot in it for young lawyers. I’ve found a lot of Law Association events have been fun. You can get talking to some of the more senior practitioners and those conversations have been quite engaging. It’s good for young lawyers to realise that older lawyers are not scary. They’re human just like us and they can be quite fun to hang out with on occasion.
What is the biggest issue facing the legal profession right now?
Access to justice.
Have you done any media interviews/provided any statements to the media in the past year as a committee convenor and spokesperson for ADLS/The Law Association?
No.
What is your vision for the legal profession in 2050?
I would like the legal profession to become a more inclusive and accepting place, where young lawyers can feel connected to and supported by their colleagues and employers.
What do you think The Law Association could do to improve its offering to members?
One thing my committee has decided to focus on is to provide more for our national membership outside of the Auckland region. The Law Association does good work in Auckland, but we don’t want our regional lawyers to miss out on the benefits of The Law Association membership that Auckland-based lawyers have.
To find out more about the professional, collegiality, and networking opportunities associated with being involved in Law Association committee work, contact Daniel.Conway@thelawassociation.nz or Moira.McFarland@thelawassociation.nz.
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