The Power Women Lawyers Omitted From The Elite Women Lawyers List?

The recent ranking of the ‘Elite Women’ in law for 2021 is another ranking survey that sought to identify “exceptional female leaders” in the law who showed standout achievements.

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Whilst somewhat nebulous, the list of women included hardly any from the LawFuel Power List and included 13 partners, 11 ‘C suite executives’, nine counsel and 2 senior associates it carried the appropriate spread of Biglaw entrants – Bell Gully (1), Chapman Tripp (1), Buddle Findlay (1), Simpson Grierson (2), MinterEllison Rudd Watts (1), Dentons Kensington Swan (1), DLA Piper (1) and Russell McVeagh (1).

Of the outside firms, Auckland Airport was the only one to have two high fliers in the list.

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The results derive from a survey put out by NZ Lawyer in September and are based upon those female lawyers who are somehow involved in a role that influenced the profession.

Vague-sounding it may be, but the survey’s team then went through the list to isolate that key missing ingredient – ‘passion’ – to identify who should make the cut.

Interestingly, with LawFuel’s Power List, which rests also upon reader contribution, but also survey among working professionals, we isolate lawyers (male or female or, we supposed, even non-binary) to determine what power they have in terms of their role, including their influence upon the profession.

And this year, as we reported, the extensive results showed a record number of women in the list – 23 – including six of the top 10 entrants in the Power List being women, of whom none make the ‘elite list’. Huh?

LawFuel lawyer of the year Cassie Nicholson? Solicitor General Una Jagose? Law Society President Tiana Epati? None suffer from lack of contribution or passion.

Still, that’s lists for you?

Among the elite women are Bankside Chambers’ Anna Kirk, appointed to the International Court of Arbitration, the first women to bne appointed to the role, along with Susie Sneddon, founder of Base Law, a law firm focused upon female solicitors, Helen McKay, founder of Juno Legal, the business-to-business legal model and Rocket Lab’s Courtney Dick.