Lady Deborah Chambers QC is a prominent and powerful lawyer within the profession, as well as being heavily involved in numerous legal organisations. Lady Deborah has been a prominent member of the bar for some years, casting her elegant and stylish shadow upon a range of cases in the relationship property and trusts arena, as well […]
Jonathan Woodhams is nominally the Executive Director of litigation funder LPF Group, but his power lies more in his position helping to select and direct some of the most significant, civil litigation in New Zealand. Working closely with a high powered board at the Funder, including former Supreme Court Justice Bill Wilson QC, fellow director
Running the largest criminal defence organisation in the country provides Peter Hutchinson with an influence that can hardly be understated. Appointed to his role as Director of the Public Defence Service in December 2017, he has 20 years’ experience as a barrister behind him, as well as working for the PDS since 2010. The PDS
Mai Chen’s ubiquitous hyper-energetic performance across legal, commercial, academic and political platforms continued during 2018, although her ranking has slipped somewhat. Running her Beltway-style public law firm handling public policy and legislative issues, she has continued to help set the agenda for legal and legislative thinking as well as regularly writing or commenting upon legal
Sir David Williams QC, former jurist and New Zealand’s leading arbitrator retains one of the busiest arbitration practices in New Zealand, ruling on some of the most complex and high value arbitrations in the world where he has been involved either as counsel or arbitrator in over 130 international arbitrations. His work involving oil and
IRD legal boss Martin Smith has one of the most influential and largest in-house legal teams in the country under his management. Formerly a tax consulting partner in a major accounting practice in Sydney and Director of Taxation Research for Ernst & Young in New Zealand, he has degrees from Adelaide University and a Masters
Robert Fisher QC is regarded as one of the key ‘go to’ mediators by many in the corporate world and has achieved a high profile with his various assignments and writings on evidential, arbitration and related issues. A former High Court judge, having retired from the bench in 2004, he has applied himself fulltime to his arbitration and
Brian Dickey’s role as Auckland Crown Prosecutor has been strong, but the role has lacked the power it once possessed with the Crown Law cutbacks and the split of the Auckland role with the appointment of South Auckland prosecutor Natalie Walker to handle much of the criminal work. Nevertheless, the role as chief prosecutor in
Chapman Tripp Chief Executive Partner Nick Wells heads one of the country’s most powerful law firms, as well as having some key influence in the Labour-lead government. Although not Maori himself, his Maori children and partner and strong iwi connections have created a strong Maori law practice, including advising government, the Office of Treaty Settlements
