What a Lawyer

For our final episode of the season, Sarah sits down with Joey James, Partner at Anthony Harper, to talk about finding opportunity in law. With over a decade of experience in commercial litigation spanning insolvency, restructuring, company law and complex contractual disputes, Joey shares how opportunity has shaped every stage of his career. From his early years in Auckland and time in London with RBS, to returning home to lead the CBL Insurance liquidation and step into partnership, his story is one of timing, growth and backing yourself when new challenges arise. They also explore the creation of Discovery Specialists, an Anthony Harper initiative using smarter systems and technology to make discovery more efficient, and how innovation, leadership and lifestyle all play a role in building a sustainable legal career. Whether you’re a law student just starting out, a junior lawyer thinking about progression, or someone curious about where a career in law can take you, this episode is for you.

From Mexico to Aotearoa New Zealand, María has built a career that bridges continents, cultures and legal systems. Now part of the Corporate Advisory and Transactions team at Wynn Williams, she brings deep international experience to her work in M&A, capital raising, commercial structuring and more. But her impact doesn’t stop there. Through her initiative, Pink Fern Consulting, María supports foreign-trained lawyers navigating requalification in New Zealand. She offers practical advice, cultural insight and a much-needed sense of community. She is sharp, generous and full of insight. A great listen for any lawyer considering a move to New Zealand from overseas, or even from New Zealand to somewhere else.

In the second episode of Season 3 of the What a Lawyer podcast, Sarah sits down with Keegan Jones from WRMK Lawyers in Whangārei. Keegan’s journey into law reflects a deep sense of purpose, combining strong commercial experience with a commitment to community and kaupapa Māori values. After clerking at a commercial firm in Christchurch and completing his Law and Commerce degrees at the University of Canterbury, he moved into policy and advisory work at Te Puni Kōkiri - the Ministry of Māori Development - before returning home to Northland. Now a Senior Solicitor at WRMK Lawyers, Keegan advises across a broad mix of commercial and construction matters, including business sales, leasing, shareholder arrangements, and development projects. But it's what he’s building beyond his day job that truly sets him apart. In 2022, Keegan founded the Free Legal Clinics Project – an initiative offering free, iwi-based legal support across Northland. Since its launch, the project has helped over 500 people and is expanding into Christchurch and the Waikato. Keegan has already been recognised as a NZ Lawyer Rising Star, named among the Most Influential Lawyers in the country, and was a semi-finalist for Young New Zealander of the Year – and he’s only just getting started. Tune in to hear how Keegan is using his legal career to create meaningful change, one community at a time. Hit "Play Now" in the title or listen on your favourite podcast platform.

Join Sarah and Sam as they discuss the legal job market of 2024 and bring the year to a close with this bonus track. ‍ In the final episode of Season 2, Sam is joined by his business partner, Sarah Wilson, Co-Director of Chisholm Clarke. While Sam typically interviews legal professionals, Sarah brings a fresh perspective from her experience in legal search. Although early in her career, Sarah has quickly made her mark after spending nearly two and a half years at a global recruitment agency and becoming her own boss in January this year. In this episode, Sam and Sarah delve into the 2024 legal market, sharing valuable insights on trends, salary expectations, common challenges and solutions and what lawyers may see in the coming months. They also touch on advice for young, ambitious lawyers navigating the evolving landscape, and provide guidance on how to thrive in a competitive market. They spotlight on general salary trends for lawyers, but for more specific detail - here is a breakdown below. Salaries vary by region, firm type, level and practice area. Larger firms often offer structured benefits to more senior lawyers, while smaller and medium-sized firms balance competitive packages with a focus on work-life balance and flexibility. If you're looking for more detail on comparing your salary, are interested in beginning a conversation with us or have some feedback on this episode, please reach out today. And lastly, thank you to all our listeners, lawyers and law firms of the New Zealand legal industry for supporting this podcast and our work at Chisholm Clarke. It was an honour to receive our first award for Service Provider of the Year to the legal industry this year and sponsor and present the awards at NZ Lawyer's ceremony for Young Private Practice Lawyer of the Year and Young In-House Lawyer of the Year. We are thrilled to support these young, talented lawyers and emerging leaders of Aotearoa and congratulations to the Excellence Awardees and Finalists in both categories, and to all those involved in every category across the night and the industry. We are already looking forward to doing it all over it again next year.

In this episode, we are joined by a career complex commercial and civil litigator from Buddle Findlay, Cora Morrison. Cora has gained a huge amount of experience across smaller and boutique to large national and highly-ranked Firms, gaining interesting perspective on the workplace.‍It may have been really easy to discuss Cora's background and work, but she chose to do something a little different and address the elephant in the room - the darker side of practicing law. Of course we are talking about ambition, expectation and success, balance and burnout and how to deal with these things.‍As an ambitious and self-proclaimed impatient person, Cora heaped expectation on herself early to reach goals faster. With a whirlwind approach and external factors impacting her personal life, she barreled towards full-blow burnout, twice. Learn from Cora how this happened, what she did to rectify the situation and how one might prevent falling into it in the first place.

In this episode we delve into the deep area of Human Rights Law, primarily across humanitarian, immigration and family, with a Senior Associate from Cavell Leitch named Rabiah Khawaja.‍Sam and Rabiah begin with touching on live, real world issues and what sort of humanitarian responses New Zealand provides and how effective that is. Responses are allocated, but proportions of relief are not always the same.‍Migrants that are effected by war-torn countries or have had their families or homes lost in significant natural disasters are supported by Rabiah's work to assist refugees. One might need to hold back the tears when seeing, hearing and dealing with what she does on a daily basis. ‍Rabiah also discusses growing diverstiy int he workplace and why personal connections are so important for team collaboration.

In this episode, we are joined by Christian Pinkney, an intermediate civil litigator from Corcoran French in Christchurch. Christian's journey in law didn't start the usual way. He shares his journey through University, through his first role being somewhere he hadn't envisioned and working hard to get to where he needs to be now. ‍Christian's experience at University was like most of ours, having way too much fun and on reflection, could have worked harder to set himself up for success. Starting out with a full time role in-house instead of in Private Practice meant his start was different that what he envisioned. ‍But through working hard and acquiring skills, he landed a great role and seems to be absolutely loving it. Christian also discusses the main differences between his experience working in-house vs private practice and has an obvious piece of advice for himself at the end. ‍Sam reviews this conversation in depth at the episode for our junior audience.

This episode was a really fun one to put together. Sunny and Sam have known each other for years so it was a bit like old times. This conversation with Sunny is focussed on Criminal Law and the competing elements of Prosecution and Defence. During the early parts of Sunny's career he was immersed in Defence with the Public Defence Service before his more recent few years doing Prosecution on behalf of the Crown. We tap into this unique perspective to reveal what the role of each lawyer looks like, how to navigate moral conflict whilst doing the best for your client and what the future of criminal law could look like. Tune into this talk on your favourite podcast platform or through the link below. https://open.spotify.com/episode/54yflmjkDyufJYUFcSncug

In this episode, we discuss the world of Digital Assets with James Cochrane, a Partner in Lane Neave's national dispute resolution team. James has had a broad career spanning large top tier Firms with challenging and intricate work to specialist practice building and really honing in on his now-refined speciality. In this discussion, we visit James' passion for Cryptocrurrency and how his interest in the subject matter helped morph his thinking and skill-acquisition. James describes various laws surrounding digital assets and the remaining grey area in the legislation that supports it. To listen to this podcast, visit the below link or wherever you get your podcasts

In this episode we explore Emma's backgrounds in Private Practice (8 years) and her In-house Government experience (8 years), and discuss the differences she has experienced first hand between the two of them, in the field of Corporate Commercial Law.‍ Emma began her career as a Russell McVeagh Scholar and moved to the capital for the biggest opportunity of her young career. She spent 4 years learning the ropes of a large corporate culture before moving to a new mid-tier firm in Morrison Mallett.‍ Having amassed some 8 years in Private Practice, Emma decided to try her hand fighting the good fight and moved into a Government role, and hasn't looked back. The lingering questions are - What was her preference and why? How did the day to day work differ? What was the cultural and working environment change like? What about the people? We could go on forever.‍ This episode is for the curious Lawyer sitting on one side of the fence potentially keen to consider the other.

In this episode, we are fortunate to have one of New Zealand's leading environmental law specialists, Sarah Scott from Simpson Grierson. Sarah has amassed a whopping 17 years at SG that have seen her gain immense exposure to various areas in the law and the opportunity to specialise and grow where she now practices. We delve into her expertise and knowledge of the Resource Management Act 1991 (RMA) and what has been happening here recently. With two new pieces of legislation set to be phased in over the next 10 years, Scottie shares her thoughts on why it was necessary, what we have now and where to next. This of course all sits under an enormous cloud of uncertainty due to the change of Government in New Zealand. Could it mean that all this much-needed hard work is repealed and our Environmental lawyers, Councillors, Developers and the like are stuck in the same position, at least for now?

In this episode we are joined by tech wizard Peter Fernando from Duncan Cotterill's partnership, who specialises in TMT under the Corporate Commercial umbrella. Generative Artificial Intelligence is a hot topic with the introduction of more tools this year in 2023 than ever before. But the written law surrounding AI hasn't changed since the Privacy Act was passed in 1993 or in more recent versions (2020) - only the subject matter has. Peter discusses the three biggest legal risks he sees in the everyday use of these tools, how his background sparked his interest in the field and his love of Formula One, before it was made mainstream by Netflix's popular Drive to Survive series.

In this episode we are joined by Gerard Elwell, a Senior Associate and Head of Employment at Young Hunter. We explore his background and expert views on the Employment Relations Authority (ERA), some proposed legislative changes and creative solutions to current issues within the framework. We ask Gerard our quickfire five and gain further insight into him as a person as well as a Lawyer.