Legal Leader
Last Year – 4
Tiana Epati’s impact on the profession as Law Society president was such that her impact continues, heightened by the debacle involving her successor Jacque Lethbridge\’s resignation as NZLS president.
To quote from a profile piece in Woman Magazine:
“The reason the president of the New Zealand Law Society – and LawFuel’s 2019 Lawyer of the Year – is making time for us is because she is a champion of change; a merchant of hope who knows there are women who need to see what they can be. As the first person of Polynesian descent to hold the role, and the only Law Society president to give birth while in the job, Tiana is also driven by what her lawyer father said when she insisted on following him into the same career:
Chosen as LawFuel\’s Lawyer of the Year in 2019 she commented to Woman Magazine: “Oh, you should choose someone else,” because she was already in a very public role. But they insisted, because of the fresh voice of leadership she brought and the positive impact she’d had in a tumultuous time.
