Where do you work, what’s your role?
I am a partner in D&S Law. I run and operate the firm with my business partner, Pooja Sundar.
Where did you study?
I began my studies in New Zealand at the University of Canterbury, as a mature student. I did my first two years there, and then I completed my LLB (Hons) at Auckland University.
What’s been your career to date?
In the UK, I had various jobs after leaving school. But primarily, for about 15 years, I was a union rep. That’s what got me interested in the law, through representing people in their personal grievance cases with employers. So when it came to moving to New Zealand (my partner is a doctor and got offered a job over here), I decided I would go and study law, and I honestly thought I would become an employment lawyer. But I obviously didn’t. My work is mostly in immigration and refugee law and surrogacy/ reproductive technology. My partner and I were the first same-sex de facto couple to adopt in New Zealand. And since then our family has grown to three children.
When I left law school, I worked for a family law barrister for a bit, and then I got a job at an immigration law firm and progressed from junior solicitor through to senior associate, and then I left and set up my own business.
I fell into immigration law. I think a lot of people have notions when they’re leaving law school about the area of law they’d like to work in, but the practical reality of life is to find a job, especially as a mature student. Not everybody is as keen as mustard to hire you. I did fall into it, but in the same respect, I’ve enjoyed it.
I do enjoy that aspect of helping people. I think a lot of lawyers in all various fields of law, get a kick out of helping people. For me, my kick is reuniting families and making sure somebody is not returned to a country where their human rights are going to be abused. It’s tremendous to be able to make that phone call to say: “You can stay, you don’t have to leave, you’re safe” and the vast majority of the time you’re met with stony silence. You think that this person is going to be beside themselves. But for most of them, they just can’t believe it, because it’s been so long, and they just can’t take it in. And it’s not until a couple of days later, you get a phone call back saying: “Is this really true? Did I dream of this kind of thing?”
I also do surrogacy work. It’s just so nice to do those kinds of cases. With Family Court judges, it’s often the only nice thing they do. It doesn’t involve people fighting, it is pure joy. And we often get Family Court judges posing for their picture with the family. It’s nice to be part of that when it’s all smiles.
How long have you been involved with The Law Association committees, and which committees have you worked with?
I’m the convenor of the Immigration and Refugee Law committee, and I’ve been on the committee for a number of years, becoming convenor after Deborah Manning stepped down from the role.
Why is committee work important?
The committee gives you the opportunity to get together with other practitioners who operate in the area, to sound off to one another, to figure out whether the issue that’s driving you might be an issue that’s driving other people as well. And then, collectively agreeing on what we’re going to do about it. Because otherwise, you’re a lone voice shouting into the void. Immigration New Zealand is a massive organisation. You can’t pick up the phone and call the chief executive and have a yarn about what’s troubling you. Whereas, through the committee, we have a collective voice and a seat at the table. We are taken seriously.
How do The Law Association committees make a difference?
Over the last few years, we’ve worked really hard. Covid was a big turning point in terms of our relationship with Immigration New Zealand. It was their willingness to engage with us, and other groups collectively… they saw the worth of it. There was such rapid change that was going on. How were they going to communicate this with the legal profession and advisers? And they were really struggling. So through that period, we built up a lot of faith and trust with them because they were coming to us and sharing things in confidence. And we weren’t breaching their confidence; we were having good discussions and pushing back on things and getting things changed before they actually came out.
As a result, we now have this really good reputation with Immigration NZ, whereby they now approach us, as opposed to us having to chase them to be involved, or us finding out about something five minutes before it’s published, and not having an effective voice. We’re at the table and early enough to enable us to try and change things or make it more practically workable for people.
During the pandemic, we came together with NZLS and immigration adviser groups and banded together as a collective voice. We’ve now set up the Immigration Reference Group, which includes all those people. We have fortnightly operational meetings with Immigration NZ where we raise issues that are happening at work. We tell them how urgent we think it is and we also offer our suggestions for a possible fix. I think that’s why Immigration NZ likes us – we’re not just dumping complaints, we’re solutions-focused.
How do you see the role of a committee convenor? What specific skills do you think a convenor needs?
You need to have a keen eye and ear for what’s actually happening. Because you need to know – as the song goes – when to hold them and when to fold them. People do have issues and want to raise them with Immigration NZ. But at the same time, my job as convenor sometimes has been to act as a bit of a reality check.
Where do we put our effort and our mana? On issues that won’t get us anywhere? Or do we want to focus on other issues? For instance, if the government makes a change to legislation and we don’t really like it, I don’t see it as being a really good use of our time writing letters and complaining about the legislation that has passed into law. The time to try and shape it is before it becomes law. Maybe as time goes on, we can demonstrate with evidence that it’s not working the way it was intended to, and then you might get a hearing. But, with new legislation that has just been introduced, I don’t see the point.
As for skills, it’s about harnessing the team because it is a team effort, using the skills of everybody involved. Immigration and refugee law is quite a wide area. We have practitioners on the committee whose sole focus is refugee law, and then others with an interest in immigration things but more from a business and investment perspective. And then some are interested in the humanitarian aspects of immigration. Some people have specialities within those areas. It’s about drawing them into things when it’s something in their field.
What is your biggest frustration as a convenor?
The one that we’ve expressed as a committee over and over again to The Law Association is that we don’t have the ability to communicate nimbly and quickly with the membership. Yes, we have LawNews, but not everybody wants to read about the 25 changes that have taken place in immigration. I feel that each committee should have some space on the web where you can provide this information regularly because we’re supposed to be a representative organisation. We are doing all this work but does anyone know what we’re doing? I’ve just ended up building up a mailing list of my own because there was so much change. Immigration NZ has started to publish a bi-monthly roundup and we push that out to people. Ideally, that would come through The Law Association.
What’s been the most notable achievement or biggest focus of your committee over the past few years? Why was that important?
Without a doubt, it’s been developing closer relationships with Immigration NZ, the fortnightly meetings with Immigration NZ on operational issues, and then getting them to produce the bi-monthly document. A lot of people have said that document is really useful. It provides a detailed breakdown of everything that’s happened with hyperlinks, and so you can just click on and go and check it. It’s an invaluable resource – and it was a Law Association initiative to get Immigration NZ to do that.
Over the past year, has your committee made submissions on a parliamentary bill or any consultation paper?
We’re still working with Immigration NZ. There was a review conducted by Mike Heron KC into outof-hours work complaints with Immigration, which we were involved in and had input into his report. And we’re working with Immigration NZ on the recommendations that came out of the report.
We’ve also made submissions to Parliament on the Mass Arrival of Asylum Seekers Bill. We spoke at a Select Committee on migrant exploitation as well and how things could be improved for migrants, including specific visas for exploited migrants and extending their duration. We’ve also commented on and contributed to updated practice notes for the Immigration and Protection Tribunal.
What would you say to anyone thinking of becoming involved in a Law Association committee?
Do it for the right reasons. Don’t do it to put it on your CV. Do it if you want to actively get involved.
What’s the biggest issue facing your practice area at the moment? And how does that affect lawyers and their clients?
For refugee law, it’s remuneration because the majority of refugee work is done as legal aid, which is at the lowest rates available. It doesn’t recognise the complexity of the work involved. And there are very few lawyers working in this area, somewhere in the region of about 10 or 15 across the country who regularly do refugee work. Others do it a bit here and a bit there. And the reason for that is it’s not sustainable.
For immigration, it’s constant policy change. There’s so much of it, it’s just so hard to keep up with the pace of change. This year alone, I think there’s been over 40 amendments made to the immigration rules, and that’s huge. We’ve got a new government so we expect to see a rash of other changes that are going to come in as soon as they align themselves with what they want to do. Clients are looking to you for advice, and you provide it, and then it changes two weeks later. It makes you look incompetent.
What’s the best-kept secret about The Law Association?
The committee members and conveners are all volunteers; we do not get paid to do the work.
What is the biggest issue facing the legal profession right now?
I would say, one of the most topical things in law is tikanga Māori and its place within the legal system. It’s a hot issue and it will be interesting to see how that develops.
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?
I have. On refugee or immigration law, I’m often referenced in my capacity as a member of The Law Association/convenor of the committee because for the media it adds gravitas. When I speak about surrogacy and assisted reproductive technology, that’s as a father of three children through surrogacy, as a legal expert in the field, and partner of D&S Law.
What is your vision for the legal profession in 2050?
As much as I’d like to think 2050 offers a brighter future, I’m not naive enough to think that people are still not going to be arguing about things. It’s just that we will be arguing about different things from what we’re arguing about right now.
What do you think The Law Association could do to improve its offering to members?
Going back to that point I made earlier: having the ability for more direct communications between the content from the committee and the members that it’s specifically targeting. That might look like a specific webpage for the Employment Committee, the Family Law Committee etc, and for it to be updated and refreshed regularly so that the members in that practice area and interest can log on and know that they’re getting that information relevant to them.
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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