Damp Squid, or Lighting the Parched Pay Issue? This week’s industrial action by New Zealand duty lawyers did not bring the courts to a grinding halt. But organiser Dennis Ansley says that was never the real measure of success. What has happened is that a long-ignored pay crisis has finally made it onto the national […]
The Duty Lawyers’ Revolt Saw A Quiet Week, Loud Message Read More »
Buddle Findlay is delighted to announce that as of 1 January 2026, Andrijana Milosavljevic, Seamus Barnett, Chelsea Easter and Emma Roper have been promoted to senior associate. Our new appointments continue to build depth and expertise across the firm. Buddle Findlay congratulates Andrijana, Seamus, Chelsea and Emma on their appointments. Andrijana Milosavljevic becomes a senior
NZ Law News – Buddle Findlay promotes four to senior associate Read More »
District Court Judge Ema Aitken of ‘Night at the Northern Club fame’ has lodged what many an unprecedented procedural application and wants to summons Chief District Court Judge Heemi Taumaunu to give evidence at her disciplinary hearing due to start in next month. Trying to drag her boss into the witness box is just about
Embattled ‘Northern Club Judge’ To Call The Boss As Witness Read More »
The Class Action That Redrew Banking’s Rules When a relatively unknown litigator forces two of the country’s most powerful banks into a nine-figure reckoning, you don’t call it luck. You call it LawFuel’s 2025 Lawyer of the Year. Scott Russell of Russell van Hout has been named LawFuel’s 2025 New Zealand Lawyer of the Year,
Scott Russell Named 2025 NZ Lawyer of the Year After $100M Banking Class Action Victory Read More »
NZ Law’s Power Lawyer List 2025 By John Bowie, LawFuel Publisher | The 2025 LawFuel Power List delivers its usual cocktail of institutional heavyweights, courtroom titans, regulatory shock troops, and a few strategists whose influence is quiet but devastatingly real. It’s opinionated, occasionally provocative, and guaranteed to irritate at least some of the people who
LawFuel Power List 2025: New Zealand’s Most Influential Lawyers Read More »
LawFuel Power List 2025 No. 11 Russell secured a $135.6 million ASB settlement in October 2025, one of New Zealand’s largest banking payouts without a liability admission, after four years of class action litigation over Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act disclosure breaches. The ANZ case continues. That’s plaintiff-side power: making banks sweat, resisting retrospective
LawFuel Power List No. 7 Chang moves up three spots because the SFO under her leadership stopped resembling a bureaucratic afterthought and started resembling a threat. Foreign-bribery whistleblower platforms, Ponzi plea deals, sustained prosecutions of corporate fraud—2025 saw the SFO prosecuting with a swagger that’s been absent for years. The Court of Appeal’s criticism in
LawFuel Power List 2025 No. 8 LawFuel’s 2024 Lawyer of the Year, Ron Mansfield’s defence of eye surgeon Philip Polkinghorne in the 2024 murder trial was New Zealand’s highest-profile criminal case in a generation—eight weeks of wall-to-wall media coverage, a jury note revealing “most people don’t think there’s enough evidence to support suicide” but acquitting
LawFuel Power List 2025 No. 9 Redington oversees one of New Zealand’s largest legal teams (70+ lawyers) and the IRD’s digital transformation—one of the Southern Hemisphere’s biggest government IT projects. That’s not glamorous work, but it’s power: tax revenue ($116 billion annually) funds everything from hospitals to highways, and Redington’s team interprets the Inland Revenue
LawFuel Power List 2025 No. 10 Pilkington rode the Commerce Act reform wave straight into the Power List. As Russell McVeagh’s competition practice leader, he’s authored extensive commentary on the biggest regulatory overhaul in 20+ years: merger control tightening, predatory pricing tests, call-in powers for “creeping acquisitions.” Boardrooms across New Zealand now need competition clearance
