Pro Bono Exemplar
Last Year – 46
Previous winner of LawFuel’s ‘Lawyer of the Year’, MinterEllison litigation and dispute resolution partner Stacey Shortall is on the list not only for her obvious legal abilities over her 20 year career, including a lengthy stint in New York, but more for her work as an inspirational charity and woman law leader. She received her New Zealand Order of Merit this year for services to the law and the community.
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 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.
