The 2023 Law Power List: Numbers 31 – 40
31. Brendon Horsley, Inspector-General of Intelligence & Security
Last Year – 42
An increased security situation with the rising tensions with China, the Israel-Hamas and Ukrainian wars, and other actors at large who may create unrest have seen a lift in the ranking for New Zealand’s former Deputy Solicitor General and current Inspector General of Intelligence and Security.
As we noted last year, he is more George Smiley than James Bond, but Brendan Horsley has an important role supervising New Zealand’s intelligence services at a time when terrorist and extremist threats continue to cause concern.
As ‘holder of the keys’ for the country’s top secrets, Horsley was appointed as Inspector General of Intelligence and Security in 2021 and supervising the ‘behind closed doors’ activities of the Security Intelligence Service (SIS) and the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) who face reforms in the wake of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Christchurch terror attack.
Horsley, like the spies he deals with, operates from an office in Defence House out of what has been described as a “sensitive compartmented information facility”, which is windowless and insulated from the outside world, including cellphone intrusion.
His disciplined and focused approach to his work has seen the agencies he oversees as being “overly defensive” on some occasions when his office has requested or required information regarding surveillance warrants and other activities.
However, his focus on ensuring the intelligence activities are conducted lawfully remains the core of his work, permitting him to relax at his Martinborough retreat where only a new dog keeps him awake at night.
32= Cristina Billett – GM Super Fund Lawyer
New Entrant
Cristina Billett’s role as General Manager of Corporate Affairs at the Super Fund sees her in a powerful position in respect of the multi-billion dollar Fund. A corporate lawyer who worked with Bell Gully and as a senior associate at Herbert Smith Freehills in Australia she has significant experience in the corporate market, including financial services, M&A and public law.
Being involved in a governance capacity screening Fund investments and chairing news investments implementation group that assesses risks and other issues has provided a major power player, which has seen her involved in Auckland’s light rail proposal as well as working in a group across Crown entities that helped establish the $300 million Elevate NZ Venture Fund.
The Fund Guardians have a relatively small legal team given the size of their portfolio with General Counsel Craig Douglas, formerly a senior solicitor at Russell McVeagh, reporting to Billett following his appointment to the role in late 2022.
The nature of the Fund requires ‘agility and scalability’ according to one report on Billett, who said that the legal department’s capabilities through both its legal advice and business counsel permits the Fund to participate in investment opportunities that can be complex and varied, as well as time-bound and where risk mitigation is fundamental to successful investment.
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32= Philip Crump
New Entrant
A new entrant to the List and a highly experienced senior lawyer and writer Philip Crump, who now heads the ZB Plus digital news outlet, along with his conservative substack newsletter ‘Cranmer’s Substack’ written under the pen name Thomas Cranmer.
He trained at Russell McVeagh in the late 1990s.
He has worked for some of the largest law firms in the world, principally in London, including Shearman & Sterling, Kirkland & Ellis, where he became partner in 2007, before departing for Gibson Dunn in 2015. Most recently he worked as a leveraged finance chief at DLA Piper in London. All the firms are members of LawFuel’s ‘Most Prestigious Law Firms’ List.
He has provided significant commentary and revelations in his Substack commentaries, along with other conservative-leaning publications, such as his exposure of the fact that a Government agency paid TVNZ a sum of $300,000 for broadcasting a series of climate change segments. While sponsored content is a common practice and generally not controversial, TVNZ has decided to reinforce the labeling of such content, particularly on its Breakfast show.
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33. Natalie Coates
Natalie Coates entered the Power List in 2021 and as a former academic and lawyer has been at the forefront of indigenous rights law issues but advocated the ground-breaking case for the late Peter Ellis, successfully arguing that that tikanga was part of New Zealand’s common law and that it should provide Ellis with the right to clear his name or re-establish his mana, even if dead.
Shebecame a lecturer at Auckland University Faculty of Law after graduating with an LLM from Harvard University. She taught the Treaty of Waitangi, jurisprudence, tikanga and the law, legal ethics and law and society.
Now a partner at Kahui Legal in Wellington she advises on public law, commercial matters, trust law, Maori land law and Maori, human and indigenous rights.
34 Silvana Schenone
New Entrant
Former MinterEllisonRuddWatts partner Silvana Schenone may no longer be at the legal coal face as a senior partner at Minters, but her role with leading New Zealand-owned investment banking group and wealth managers Jardens sees her play a key role in the company’s involvement in the New Zealand and Australian commercial scene.
Although she resigned her role at MinterEllisonRuddWatts last year, Silvana Schenone remains a major power player on the business scene.
The former New Zealand Deal Maker of the Year in 2021 at the Australasian Law Awards joined Jardens to co-head their investment banking with Sam Ricketts, boosting the company’s plans to become one of Australasia’s leading investment and advisory banks, although the company faced some headwinds of its own in the past year or so with some restructuring and capital injection
She is a board member of the New Zealand Takeover Panel, a recently retired board member of SKY City and has frequently liaised with regulatory authorities including the Financial Markets Authority, the New Zealand Stock Exchange, and the Overseas Investment Office.
Her international background has seen her practice law in New York, Chile, and New Zealand.
Married to MinterEllisonRuddWatts partner Lloyd Kavanagh (left) who met in Chile when Kavanagh worked as a senior executive at Fonterra.
Lloyd Kavanagh is himself a prominent financial services and corporate lawyer having set up MinterEllisonRuddWatts’ Financial Services Team and is also a former Chair of the firm.
She has also played a prominent role as a diversity champion and is a member of Global Women and a founding member of On Being Bold, an online collective for empowering women.
A Harvard graduate who had been offered scholarships at Oxford and Cambridge as well as the US Ivy League law school, she moved to New Zealand with her husband-to-be in 2007. She previously worked in New York for leading firm Sullivan & Cromwell.
She had also previously worked in a male-dominated Chilean law firm, which shaped her views on women working in a tough, competitive environment like M&A work.
In an interview with The NZ Herald she said:
”Growing up in that environment, I never wanted to be like the men, but a lot of women, particularly one generation older than me, the way they saw their success as an M&A corporate lawyer was to pretend to be a man – to wear a black suit, to be tough as a man, not to show your feminine side, that you care about people because they wanted to be a man.
”I look at it and I am thinking, well, I have a massive competitive advantage because I am so different because I can think from different perspectives, I can look at things differently.”
35= Mai Chen
Last year – 28
The constitutional and public law expert who famously ‘sacked herself’ from her eponymous law firm in 2022 has continued to play a role in public, diversity and constitutional law matters.
Something of a serial ‘founder, she has not only set up her public law firm, Chen Palmer (1994), WilltoLive.co.nz (2013), the Superdiversity Institute on Law (2015), New Zealand Asian Lawyers Association, Law Toolbox Chambers (2022)
One of the Top 50 Diversity Figures in Public Life in the Global Diversity List, she has also founded and is the inaugural Chair of NZ Asian Leaders and is also the inaugural Chair of the Superdiversity Institute she founded.
She was previously managing partner of her firm, Chen Palmer Public and Employment Law Specialists, and has also served as Professor at the University of Auckland School of Law and served for seven years as non-executive director of the BNZ. Earlier last year she became a director of southern meat processors, Blue Sky Pastures and has been regularly involved in both professional and charitable activities in a variety of fields.
She is Chair of New Zealand Asian Leaders and the Superdiversity Centre for Law, Policy and Business she remains a thought leader on key legal, business, and public law issues.
35= Tudor Clee
Last Year – 41
Winner of our ‘Lawyer of the Year’ 2022, Tudor Clee has assiduously pursued his work fighting injustices following his successes bursting the over-the-top injustices regarding Covid restrictions upon Kiwis seeking to return to the country during the pandemic.
Not one to pull punches, Clee has mounted a growing campaign against freedom-infringements imposed by government, focused most recently on the abuses inflicted upon some who occupied parliament’s grounds during the Covid pandemic.
An inveterate traveller, currently living partly in Barcelona, he operates a website focused on both his travels and his focus on helping children to understand the world we live in. Once saying he was the most requested defence lawyer in New Zealand he ran the largest litigation practice in the country by case load, handling more legal aid cases than anyone, working 85 hours a week.
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Now working on private client work, his success on the political donation scandal elevated his profile further and demonstrated a capacity to deal with politically sensitive and complex litigation, as much as the legal aid work that once saw him as the ultimate ‘car boot’ lawyer and ‘The King of Crime’.
36. Mark Weenink
Last Year – 30
Former Company Secretary and Legal Counsel for Westpac and former Managing Partner of MinterEllisonRuddWatts, Mark Weenink has a unique understanding and appreciation of the mechanics of both the legal world and the commercial sector.
Currently Group General Counsel for the private Todd Corporation he retains a pivotal role in New Zealand business, particularly with his role as board member of the Financial Markets Authority.
Todd Corporation’s diverse interests across energy, infrastructure, property and telecommunications, as well as having interests across multiple jurisdictions has created possibly the most powerful private business in the country and its involvement creates significant economic impact, as well as ongoing regulatory requirements.
37. Helen MacKay
Last Year – 39
A new entrant to the list in 2022, Juno Legal founder Helen Mackay has already appeared on LawFuel’s list of influencers (at no. 9) as the pioneer of NewLaw in New Zealand and as one of the first to develop her hybrid law model in Juno, assisting in-house lawyers to work efficiently and effectively, with a keen eye on both legal application and lifestyle issues.
As a mother of three and being a fourth generation lawyer, she has also been an important thought leader in terms of confronting in-house, technology and hybrid working trends among others.
A former CEO of the In-House Lawyers Association (ILANZ), she was very aware of the need for corporate lawyers to be available on a flexible hours basis, which fitted with her own ideas about how best to work and live.
After intensive research and investigation Juno now has offices in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch, has 29 lawyers on board handling an array of in-house legal issues, troubleshooting, resourcing, flexible working and – of course – influencing thoughts about the law and life.
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Helen Mackay is a real changemaker and the first champion of NewLaw in New Zealand with her firm Juno Legal continuing to expand rapidly across the country. This year she is chairing LawFest and is a regular commentator on law and innovation. She is regularly called on by public and private sector entities and academia as the go-to person on the future of the legal profession.
38 Rachael Reed KC
New Entrant
Over 20 years’ experience in civil and criminal litigation continue to elevate Rachael Reed of City Chambers to the higher echelons of litigation work as she claims title to some of the most significant issues arising in the courts in recent years.
Leading the team taking the class action in respect of historic abuses at Dilworth School, which is set to become the largest non-government compensation claim ever made in New Zealand.
She has also been involved in the representation of lawyers alleging workplace practices complaints involving Hamilton Crown Prosecutor Jacinda Hamilton, GNS Science’s defence in the Whakhaari / White Island eruption and previously represented Remuera murder accused, Philip Polkinghorne.
She is Deputy Chair of the Institute of Chartered Accountants Disciplinary Tribunal and has previously served as Chair of the New Zealand Markets Disciplinary Tribunal and Convenor of the Auckland Standards Committee for the New Zealand Law Society.
The daughter of Michael Reed KC, who famously acted on the (final) Michael Bain defence, along with a host of other civil and criminal trials.
39 Dr Jim Farmer KC
Last Year
A long time Bar leader and one of the country’s most experienced and capable litigators, Jim Farmer KC continues to live a busy professional life that would put paid to many litigators half his age.
Suggestions of taking things quietly are readily refuted with a busy caseload, albeit perhaps more measured in terms of travel and other interests that provide the balance to a busy professional life.
His practising career included 6 years as a partner at Russell McVeagh until 1979 when he joined the New South Wales Bar in Sydney, practising there for 10 years and being appointed as a Queen’s Counsel in New South Wales in 1985. That appointment was followed in 1986 by similar appointments in Victoria, the Australian Capital Territory and New Zealand.
His extensive career has also involved academic as well as legal work in the UK, Australia and at home in New Zealand. The breadth of both his experience and knowledge are unrivaled, including often complex and lengthy litigation before the higher courts in New Zealand, the UK and Australia and including some of the most important and often lengthy commercial law trials in New Zealand.
He maintains an active interest in sailing, including a feisty opposition to the re-hosting of the America’s Cup in Spain and provides occasional, but thought-provoking musings on legal and lifestyle issues in his blog.
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40. Stacey Shortall – The ‘Giving Back’ Litigator
Last Year – 49
Previous winner of LawFuel’s ‘Lawyer of the Year’, MinterEllisonRuddWatts’ litigation and dispute resolution partner Stacey Shortall is on the list not only for her obvious legal abilities over her 20-year career but more for her work as an inspirational charity and woman law leader. She received her New Zealand Order of Merit in 2022 for services to the law and the community.
After funding her way through law school by tennis coaching in Wellington, the talented netballer and tennis player also found her passion in law and in her charitable endeavours, somehow sandwiched between life with five children and homes in Wellington and Feilding.
She previously worked for Paul Weiss in New York as a corporate litigator where she worked for over a decade handling complex financial, commercial, and environmental matters.
Obtaining wide experience defending class action lawsuits, complex financial litigation, and dealing with third-party litigation funders and others and when she returned to New Zealand in 2010 she assumed a partnership with Minter Ellison and continued with her highly recognised work with complex regulatory and related work, including disputes, litigation, high-stakes actions, and other work.
She has received awards for her community-based work in New York and New Zealand, including as the founding trustee of the Who Did You Help Today charitable trust which facilitates projects designed to create social change including homework clubs in low decile primary schools, a programme connecting imprisoned mothers with their children and an online digital platform enabling community causes to access skilled volunteers.
She is also the founder of Our Words Matter which is an online forum for sharing ideas to solve the issues that affect New Zealand. In both 2019 and 2020 she was named as a semi-finalist for the Kiwibank New Zealander of the Year Award.
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