nzlawyermagazine.co.nz
Issue 6.3
LEADING THE CHARGE Keith Binnie on tackling legal issues for New Zealand Rugby Union
HELPING BUSINESSES WORK NZ’S EMPLOYMENT LAW LANDSCAPE
CHRISTCHURCH REPORT THE LAWYERS WORKING TO REBUILD THE CITY
NEW ZEALAND LAW AWARDS FINALISTS FOR THE 2014 AWARDS REVEALED
EDITOR’S LETTER / 1.1
1 | APRIL 2014
NZLAWYERMAGAZINE.CO.NZ
12 COVER STORY
Leading the charge
Keith Binnie on tackling legal issues for New Zealand Rugby Union
38
IN-HOUSE PROFILE
FEATURES
16
42
Chasing new frontiers Meredith Connell managing partner Steve Haszard on the firm’s incredible transformation
16 | Christchurch City Report The lawyers working to rebuild the city 26 | New Zealand Law Awards The finalists for the 2014 awards revealed 32 | Helping businesses work: New Zealand’s employment law landscape The trials and triumphs of the past year, and the top trends going forward
42 | Law of the jungle Solicitor Anu Chengappa battles corruption, prejudice and the timber mafia to make sure the tigers of India survive 46 | Putting a stop to trafficking Bell Gully partner Ralph Simpson on tackling the fastest-growing criminal activity in the world
REGULARS News analysis Deals round-up Appointments Legal insight: The rule of law in New Zealand
SEPTEMBER 2014 | 1
EDITOR’S LETTER / 6.3
TAKING A DIFFERENT APPROACH
COPY & FEATURES EDITOR Kathryn Crossley CONTRIBUTORS Mackenzie Pickert, Renu Prasad, Adam Fraser, Alexandra Tselios PRODUCTION EDITOR Roslyn Meredith
Kathryn Crossley
It’s a fast-paced working environment in Christchurch these days, but the city’s lawyers seem to like it that way. More than three years after a series of earthquakes left much of the city damaged beyond repair, the rebuild is now in full swing. When you speak to Christchurch lawyers about the work they are doing to rebuild their city, you can’t help but sense their pride in and enthusiasm for this work. Although a lot of the discussion about the Christchurch legal market focuses on the volume of insurance, planning, construction and disputes work that’s currently ongoing, the way that local lawyers are approaching their work also deserves attention. With many buildings in the CBD damaged or destroyed, law firms have dispersed, but lawyers have been making an even greater effort to connect with each other. Being a lawyer can be a highpressure and sometimes isolating role, but Christchurch lawyers’ efforts to keep in touch are a reminder of the importance of looking out for our colleagues. Another consequence of the earthquakes has been that lawyers are communicating more and taking a more collaborative approach to resolving clients’ matters. The amount of work and the need for quick results is also promoting innovation. Yes, earthquake-related work is setting precedents and seeing law firms undertaking major projects, but the story of Christchurch holds other, more important lessons for the legal fraternity about being adaptive, innovating, communicating more, taking a more collegiate approach, and (re)discovering a passion for your work. The rebuild is a unique challenge and a rare opportunity for these lawyers, but a lawyer doesn’t need to live in Christchurch or be working on rebuild-related projects to work harder on relationships with colleagues, to communicate better with clients, and to seek opportunities for innovation. There’s a lot that lawyers everywhere can learn from their colleagues in Christchurch.
ART & PRODUCTION DESIGN MANAGER Daniel Williams DESIGNER Kat Vargas
SALES & MARKETING SALES MANAGER Paul Ferris MARKETING EXECUTIVE Alex Carr TRAFFIC MANAGER Maria Katsiotis
CORPORATE CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER Mike Shipley CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER George Walmsley MANAGING DIRECTOR Justin Kennedy CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER Colin Chan HR MANAGER Julia Bookallil Editorial enquiries Kathryn Crossley tel: +61 2 8437 4702 kathryn.crossley@keymedia.com.au Advertising enquiries Paul Ferris tel: +61 2 8437 4703 paul.ferris@keymedia.com.au Subscriptions subscriptions@keymedia.com.au Key Media keymedia.com.au Key Media Pty Ltd, regional head office, Level 10, 1–9 Chandos St, St Leonards, NSW 2065, Australia tel: +61 2 8437 4700 fax: +61 2 9439 4599 Offices in Auckland, Toronto, Denver, Manila australasianlawyer.com.au Copyright is reserved throughout. No part of this publication can be reproduced in whole or part without the express permission of the editor. Contributions are invited, but copies of work should be kept, as NZ Lawyer magazine can accept no responsibility for loss
ISSN 1175-5148 (Print) ISSN 1179-0830 (Online)
Kathryn Crossley, editor, NZ Lawyer
CONNECT
Correction: In Blind Courage (NZL issue 6.2), Darren Fittler’s name was spelt incorrectly. NZ Lawyer apologises for the error.
Contact the editor:
kathryn.crossley@keymedia.com.au
2 | SEPTEMBER 2014
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NEWS / ANALYSIS
Going global Australia has been a popular destination for international law firms in recent years. Will New Zealand be next?
It’s been an eventful couple of years for the Australian legal market, with the debut of a number of international firms on the local legal scene, headhunting partners or merging with local firms in the process. The entry of international firms into Australia now appears to have slowed, prompting some speculation that New Zealand could be the next destination of choice for international firms. Although crossing the Tasman would appear to be a relatively straightforward move for international firms with a presence in Australia, some New Zealand firms are sceptical about whether their international counterparts will take that step. To Russell McVeagh CEO Gary McDiarmid, New Zealand’s highly competitive and smaller legal services market may deter international firms. “Australia is a huge market compared to New Zealand,” he says. “To put this in context, the revenue of one large Australian firm would exceed that of all of the large NZ national firms. “It seems possible that some firms will seek to enter the market simply because it fits their particular strategy,” McDiarmid adds. “However, we do not think that any entry would ‘grow’ our market – in other words, regardless of the number of firms operating within it, it will remain a tiny, highly competitive market.” 4 | SEPTEMBER 2014
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Mark Weenink, managing partner at Minter Ellison Rudd Watts, agrees. “If you go to London and talk to firms over there, there’s amongst some of them a high degree of scepticism about how those [Australian] mergers have gone, and therefore I think the UK firms would be very unlikely to come to New Zealand, which is obviously markedly smaller. “I’m speaking to a number of consultants who advise on the globalisation strategy … and, on that list of attractive jurisdictions to move into, New Zealand is between 20th and 25th – it’s well down the list,” Weenink says. Webb Henderson partner Malcolm Webb is equally doubtful of international firms’ New Zealand aspirations but says prevailing market conditions would make now the best time for interested internationals to enter the market. “I’m not aware of international firms generally being interested in the New Zealand market, but I would say entry of these firms is probably more likely now than at any other time, and I say that because of the strong foreign capital flows that are coming to New Zealand, and the New Zealand market is generally pretty active as compared to other jurisdictions. If it was ever going to happen, now seems to be the most likely time.” Although local lawyers don’t believe international firms will be entering the New Zealand market anytime soon, that doesn’t mean international firms have not been looking at this option. Both Webb and Weenink have spoken to overseas players that have expressed an interest in NZ. Weenink says much of that interest has been from US firms as the UK firms have more of a presence in Australia. “I think [the UK firms] have stolen the march in some ways over US firms in terms of the relationships they have got themselves into,” he observes.
DRAWCARDS In the same way that the mining sector generated international interest in Australia, agribusiness is proving a drawcard for foreign investment into New Zealand, with much of that investment coming from Asia, and from China in particular. Weenink has also observed investor interest in acquiring property in New Zealand, such as hotels. Despite being a smaller market than Australia, Webb says the high value of the New Zealand dollar and the relatively low cost base for firms mean that the potential returns could be attractive to international firms. Weenink says another drawcard for internationals is that New Zealand is also a strong resource base from an HR perspective, with many local lawyers
having a good cultural knowledge of working in the Asia-Pacific. “There’s certainly a view that New Zealand lawyers work well when they’re sent into satellite offices; they are quite self-sufficient, have a more generalist approach to things, and culturally get on well with a lot of the Asian cultures,” he says. “New Zealand lawyers are probably a good resource to use for expanding Asian US offices.” According to Weenink, New Zealand is often used as a marketing test bed by multinational companies, and this could be another attraction for international firms. “Things that work in New Zealand are quite often rolled out into bigger jurisdictions,” he says. “I think some of the American firms would see that as a relevant factor.”
MAKING THE MOVE While some firms may be interested in merging with an international firm, the lawyers NZ Lawyer spoke to believe that overseas firms would be unlikely to take such an approach. Instead, they predicted that any international firm to enter the New Zealand market would likely choose a small group of partners to join the firm and set up an NZ office, similar to Allen & Overy’s entry into the Australian market. “I expect that an international firm would be more interested in a small group of partners who were able to support them in the international deals which have a New Zealand element,” Webb says.
LOCAL RESPONSE
“If it was ever going to happen, now seems to be the most likely time” Malcolm Webb, Webb Henderson
Although lawyers believe the arrival of international firms in NZ is unlikely, if overseas players were to enter the local market, lawyers predict a number of impacts. In Webb’s view, recruitment would be a key area of change: “If we did see a large international firm come in, then obviously they would be a very attractive employer for young, talented graduates from New Zealand.” Webb also believes that international connections could give any new entrants to the market an edge. “The local firms for New Zealand, the ones which are successful are successful for a reason because they are providing a very high quality of service to their clients,” Webb says. “That’s not going to change, but I certainly think that, for some transactions, having the infrastructure, if you like, of a major international firm will put them at an advantage in the local market for some types of deals.” In response to the increased competition, local firms would also be expected to firm up existing international referral relationships with firms overseas. NZL
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NEWS / DEALS
Deals round-up $1.34bn Goodman Fielder takeover by Wilmar International and First Pacific Co. The Goodman Fielder acquisition through a scheme of arrangement is a trans-Tasman affair, with Gilbert + Tobin advising the Wilmar and First Pacific consortium and Bell Gully acting for Goodman Fielder. In order to proceed, Wilmar International and First Pacific will need approval from shareholders, with a special meeting likely to be held later this year. The deal follows Wilmar’s 2012 acquisition of a 10% stake in Goodman.
$25m ikeGPS IPO When ikeGPS was planning its July IPO, the software and hardware company sought advice from Chapman Tripp partners Josh Blackmore and Geof Shirtcliffe and solicitor Chris Gillies, the same team that advised on Z Energy’s IPO in 2013. The ikeGPS IPO continues what has already been a successful year for Chapman Tripp’s capital markets team: the firm has acted for the issuers on six of the nine IPOs that have listed or will be listed on the NZX in 2014.
6 | SEPTEMBER 2014
Additional firms involved
Value (NZ$)
Adviser
Client
Christchurch Integrated Government Accommodation Project (CIGA Project)
Confidential
Bell Gully
NZ Government’s Jane Holland and Property Andrew Petersen Management Centre of Expertise
Wareham Cameron
Goodman Fielder takeover by Wilmar International and First Pacific Co.
A$1.34bn
Bell Gully
Goodman Fielder
Glenn Joblin and Jenny Hills
Gilbert + Tobin
Vodafone New Zealand’s new South Island headquarters
Confidential Bell Gully
Vodafone New Zealand Limited
Jane Holland
Abbott Laboratories and Fonterra JV to develop dairy farm hub in China
US$300m
Buddle Findlay
Abbott Laboratories
Grant Dunn and Scott Abel
Russell McVeagh, Graeme Quigley, John-Paul Rice
Archer Capital acquisition of AeroCare
Confidential Buddle Findlay
Management shareholders
Frank Porter and Rishalat Khan
Bell Gully, Johnson Winter & Slattery, McCullough Robertson
Funding of Air New Zealand’s first Boeing 787 aircraft
Confidential Buddle Findlay
ANZ Bank
Frank Porter and Rishalat Khan
Bell Gully
Innovation Network Corporation of Japan and Oji Holdings consortium acquisition of Carter Holt Harvey pulp and paper packaging business
$1bn
Buddle Findlay
Innovation Network Corporation of Japan
Simon Vodanovich and David Thomson
Pushpay Holdings listing on NZAX
$50m
Buddle Findlay
Pushpay Holdings
Sacha Judd and Nick Bragg
Augusta Funds Management purchase of one of Spark’s HQ buildings
$65m
Chapman Augusta Funds Tripp Management
Mark Nicholson
EROAD IPO and NZX listing
$46m
Chapman EROAD Tripp
Roger Wallis and Rachel Dunne
ikeGPS IPO
$25m
Chapman ikeGPS Tripp
Josh Blackmore and Geof Shirtcliffe
Ngai Tahu Holdings Corporation and Tainui Group Holdings agreement to buy Go Bus
$170m
Chapman Ngai Tahu Tripp Holdings Corporation and Tainui Group Holdings
John Strowger and Cathryn Barber
Transaction
Lead lawyer(s)
Buddle Findlay
Minter Ellison Rudd Watts
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Lead lawyer(s)
Additional firms involved
$149m
Chapman Scales Corporation Tim Tubman Tripp and Rachel Dunne
Harmos Horton Lusk
Vista Group IPO and NZX and ASX listings
$92m
Chapman Vista Group Tripp
John Strowger
DLA Phillips Fox
Foodstuffs North Island acquisition of New World Hawera from Edgecombe Enterprises 1941
Confidential DLA Phillips Fox
Foodstuffs North Island Limited
Samuel Wilson and Lucy Gaffikin
Paul May Law
Foodstuffs North Island Confidential DLA acquisition of New World Kapiti Phillips from MCW Kapiti Fox
Foodstuffs North Island Limited
Samuel Wilson and Lucy Gaffikin
Kensington Swan
Foodstuffs North Island sale of New World Kapiti to Young Supermarkets
Confidential DLA Phillips Fox
Foodstuffs North Island Limited
Samuel Wilson and Lucy Gaffikin
Halliwells
GMO Renewable Resources acquisition of Canterbury farmland
Confidential DLA Phillips Fox
GMO Renewable Resources
Martin Thomson, Justin March and Tammie Watkins
Cooney Silva Evatt Limited
Transaction
Value (NZ$)
Scales Corporation IPO
Adviser
Client
Oakley Capital acquisition of North Sails Europe
Confidential DLA Phillips Fox
Oakley Capital
Martin Wiseman, Brendan Meech, Robert Sloan and Lisa Meyer
Kromann Reumert
Tower Limited sale of Tower Life shares to Foundation Life
$36m
DLA Phillips Fox
Tower Limited
Rachel Taylor, Martin Wiseman, and Chris Liddall
Chapman Tripp
Vista Group International acquisition of shares in Virtual Concepts
$20.6m
DLA Phillips Fox
Vista Group International Limited
Reuben Woods
Heimsath Alexander, Clendons North Shore
Zomato NZ Media Private acquisition of certain assets of Menu Mania
Confidential DLA Phillips Fox
Zomato NZ Media Private Limited
Martin Thomson and Robert Sloan
Paul Davies Law
Port of Tauranga containerised volume commitment agreements with Kotahi Logistics
Confidential Holland Beckett
Port of Tauranga
Mark Tingey
$239m Port of Tauranga containerised volume commitment agreements with Kotahi Logistics Tauranga firm Holland Beckett has advised the Port of Tauranga on its 10-year strategic alliance with Kotahi Logistics. The deal, which was finalised in June, will increase container volumes shipped through the port. Holland Beckett regularly advises the port on commercial and strategic matters, including the recent resource consent for deepening and widening the shipping channels in Tauranga Harbour. The Kotahi deal will allow the port to undertake the consented dredging operations. Kotahi Logistics, which is a joint venture between Fonterra and Silver Fern Farms, controls the shipping logistics of a significant proportion of the country’s dairy and meat exports to international markets.
SEPTEMBER 2014 | 7
NEWS / DEALS
Transaction
Value (NZ$)
Lead lawyer(s)
Arthur J. Gallagher Australasia Holdings Pty Limited
Chris Parke and Aaron Patience
Jones Young
Distressed sale of Confidential KensingNew Zealand Nando’s business ton Swan (operated by Shivram Limited) to Nando’s group
McGrathNicol as the receivers for Shivram Limited
Daniel Hughes, Chris Parke and Aaron Patience
Norton Rose
Garmin group purchase of various business assets and shares of Fusion Electronics Limited and its subsidiaries
Confidential Kensington Swan
Garmin Switzerland GmbH and other companies in the Garmin group
Chris Parke and Aaron Patience
Lowndes Associates
Acquisition of Rex Bionics
$18m
Simpson Grierson
Union MedTech Plc Michael Sage and Matt Smith
Bell Gully, Chapman Tripp, Simmons & Simmons
Acquisition of Vodafone Fiji
F$160m
Simpson Grierson
Fiji National Provident Fund
Michael Pollard and Andrew Matthews
Bell Gully
First peer-to-peer licence application in New Zealand
n.a.
Simpson Grierson
Harmoney
Simon Vannini, Andrew Harkness, Barney Cumberland and Marc Cropper
Receivership sale of assets of Barren Holdings (2003) Ltd
Confidential Simpson Grierson
HFK Limited (as receivers)
Michael Robinson
Retail issue of fixed-rate bonds
$200m
Simpson Grierson
Auckland Council
Andrew Harkness
Spotless Group Holdings IPO and ASX listing
A$1bn
Simpson Grierson
Spotless Group Holdings
Michael Pollard and James Hawes
Gilbert + Tobin
Takeover offer to acquire FX Networks
$110m
Simpson Grierson
Vocus Communications
Michael Pollard and James Hawes
Bell Gully
Transmission Gully public-private partnership
$1bn
Simpson Grierson
Wellington Gateway Partnership consortium, Leighton HEB JV, Leighton
Simon Vannini and Bell Gully, Michael Weatherall Chapman Tripp, Russell McVeagh, Herbert Smith Freehills, King & Wood Mallesons
Vista Group IPO
$100m
Simpson Grierson
Macquarie Capital (New Zealand)
Michael Pollard and James Hawes
Chapman Tripp
Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. acquisition of Wesfarmers insurance business
A$1.01bn
Webb Henderson
Arthur J. Gallagher & Co
Michael Gartshore and Garth Sinclair
Clayton Utz
Confidential Kensington Swan
$6.1bn Transmission Gully public-private partnership The Transmission Gully motorway is New Zealand’s largest public-private partnership, and the first state highway to be delivered as a PPP. The highway is expected to open in 2020 and will be run by the Wellington Gateway Partnership (WGP) consortium for 25 years after completion. The length of the partnership added to the complexity of the project. The topography of the region, which means that the 27km roadway has almost 30 bridges along it, also complicated the contractual and financing arrangement. The complex project brings together three Australian and three New Zealand firms, which are acting for the banks, sponsors, and the Transport Agency in New Zealand. Herbert Smith Freehills, which is advising WGP, has acted on almost all of the 80 PPPs completed in Australia to date, but Transmission Gully is the first PPP the firm has completed in New Zealand.
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Additional firms involved
Client
Arthur J. Gallagher acquisition of Mike Henry Insurance Brokers and Mike Henry Insurance Funding shares
Adviser
Wynn Williams
NZLAWYERMAGAZINE.CO.NZ
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NEWS / APPOINTMENTS
Appointments PARTNER APPOINTMENTS BY LATERAL HIRE NAME
FIRM
PRACTICE AREA
PREVIOUS FIRM
Chris Bargery
Anderson Lloyd
Corporate and commercial
Russell McVeagh
Geoff Busch
Anderson Lloyd
Banking and finance
Russell McVeagh
David Holden
Anderson Lloyd
Infrastructure and construction
Russell McVeagh
Simon Munro
Anderson Lloyd
Litigation
Anthony Harper
Sue Brown
DLA Phillips Fox
Corporate, regulatory and government
Financial Markets Authority
Dr Ross Patterson
Minter Ellison Rudd Watts
Competition and regulation
Commerce Commission
SENIOR ASSOCIATE APPOINTMENTS NAME
FIRM
PRACTICE AREA
Stephanie Bonney-Lovegrove
Bell Gully
Employment law
Rebecca Cotter
Bell Gully
Property
Sooyun Lee
Bell Gully
Trademarks, intellectual property
Khim Nah
Bell Gully
Property
Hamish Bolland
Chapman Tripp
Construction
Adrien Hunter
Chapman Tripp
Corporate
Te Aopare Dewes
Chapman Tripp
Corporate
Anna Kraack
Chapman Tripp
Litigation
Sarah Lester
Chapman Tripp
Litigation
Emily Whiteside
Chapman Tripp
Litigation
Jeff Baker
DLA Phillips Fox
Banking and finance
Sonya Carter
DLA Phillips Fox
Property
Misha Henaghan
DLA Phillips Fox
Insurance and healthcare
Thomas Kelly
DLA Phillips Fox
Corporate and commercial
Anna McElhinney
DLA Phillips Fox
Insurance
Lisa Meyer
DLA Phillips Fox
Banking and finance
Simon York
DLA Phillips Fox
Funds and superannuation
Chris Hogg
LangtonHudsonButcher
Employment law
Vimal Nair
Minter Ellison Rudd Watts
Infrastructure and property development
Aimee Sandilands
Simpson Grierson
Corporate and commercial
Lizzy Wiessing
Simpson Grierson
Public sector
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NZLAWYERMAGAZINE.CO.NZ
PARTNER APPOINTMENTS BY PROMOTION
OTHER
NAME
FIRM
PRACTICE AREA
NAME
FIRM/COMPANY
TITLE
James Dunne
Chen Palmer
Parliament and law reform
Geoff Carter
Chapman Tripp
Special counsel
Daniel Arapere
DLA Phillips Fox
Property
Mark Cathro
Duncan Cotterill
Associate
Karen Overend
Duncan Cotterill
Commercial property and construction
Stephanie Melbourne
James & Wells
Solicitor
Mark Godfrey
Meredith Connell
Principal
Gus Hazel
James & Wells
Litigation
Robin McCoubrey
Meredith Connell
Principal
Tim Walden
James & Wells
Trademarks
Melissa Russell
Meredith Connell
Special counsel
Fionnghuala Cuncannon
Meredith Connell
Regulatory and commercial litigation
Nick Webby
Meredith Connell
Principal
Kim Francis
Meredith Connell
Commerce compliance
Igor Drinkovic
Minter Ellison Rudd Watts
Senior solicitor
Mark Harborow
Meredith Connell
Criminal, insolvency and proceeds of crime
Nick Frith
Minter Ellison Rudd Watts
Senior solicitor
Toby Gee
Minter Ellison Rudd Watts
Special counsel
Kirsten Lummis
Meredith Connell
Criminal litigation
Amanda Kent-Johnston
Minter Ellison Rudd Watts
Senior solicitor
Paul Murray
Meredith Connell
Insolvency and revenue
Shan Pearson
Minter Ellison Rudd Watts
Senior solicitor
Josh Shaw
Meredith Connell
Criminal litigation
Iain Stephenson
Minter Ellison Rudd Watts
Senior solicitor
Steve Symon
Meredith Connell
Commerce compliance
Melanie Tollemache
Minter Ellison Rudd Watts
Special counsel
Nick Whittington
Meredith Connell
Regulatory and general litigation
Wendy Wang
Minter Ellison Rudd Watts
Senior solicitor
Steve Keall
Steve Keall
Barrister
SEPTEMBER 2014 | 11  
PROFILE / KEITH BINNIE
Leading the
Charge Keith Binnie speaks to NZ Lawyer about tackling legal issues for New Zealand Rugby Union Keith Binnie might just have the most coveted role in the New Zealand legal profession. As general counsel at New Zealand Rugby Union (NZRU), Binnie’s job is probably the next best thing to actually being an All Black. In almost nine years at the NZRU, he has worked on a diverse range of matters, including the legal issues around hosting the Rugby World Cup, and how New Zealand intellectual property law applies to the haka “Ka Mate”. There is no such thing as a typical day for Binnie’s agile legal team, which consists of three lawyers and an additional two solicitors working on the Player Services Team, predominantly on employment law issues. His is a wide-ranging role that touches on everything from contracting and IP, to governance work, drafting regulations and working on broadcasting deals. With the NZRU’s brands being a major driver of revenue for the business, IP matters make up a significant part of Binnie’s role. “The IP portfolio focuses on the All Blacks brand and logos – that’s what generates somewhere between 40% and 50% of our revenue,” he says. “It’s a combination of test match income, broadcasting revenue from All Blacks tests, licensed products and sponsorship associated with the All Blacks.” A key challenge of this work is that “nearly everybody in New Zealand wants to rip off the All Blacks brand”, Binnie says. “I could employ a person full-time on IP compliance.” 12 | SEPTEMBER 2014
“It’s one of those things where you do have to strike a bit of a balance … a lot of people out there who probably, if you gave them the benefit of the doubt, aren’t trying to misuse the brand or create an impression of an association – they’re doing it because they’re fans and they like to be supporters.” In addition to IP, Binnie’s team is often kept busy drafting regulations across a range of issues, such as eligibility, player movement, contracting, doping, disciplinary, health and safety, and the recently introduced anti-corruption and betting regulations. Then there’s integrity-related work, such as developing policies around doping, illicit drugs, supplement use and prescription medication. Contracting is another major aspect of the NZRU’s legal work. “There are literally hundreds of contracts that require negotiation, drafting, interpretation,” he says. Binnie also undertakes NZRU governance and board related work – everything from managing the AGM and board papers to acting as company secretary. Binnie’s team provides legal assistance to the provincial unions and Super Rugby organisations, such as policy drafting and health and safety audits. He also worked as part of the insolvency rescue team that assisted with the Otago Rugby Union collapse. Major projects such as broadcasting negotiations and the Rugby World Cup are part of Binnie’s workload. The NZRU works on a project team for the World Cup, and, according to Binnie, the work
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“There’s a huge debate amongst the sports law and non-sports law fraternities as to whether there’s a body of law that can properly be termed sports law”
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PROFILE / KEITH BINNIE
varies depending on whether or not New Zealand is hosting, although the legal issues that the NZRU’s legal team typically works on include ensuring the team and the sponsors comply with participation and sponsorship agreements.
JOINING THE TEAM Before making the switch to in-house, Binnie was a partner at Simpson Grierson, initially starting as a one-year maternity leave replacement, which turned into 13 years. Following on from his previous employ ment law and industrial relations work for the New Zealand Association of Waterfront Employers and the Wellington Employers’ Association (as it was then known), Binnie headed up Simpson Grierson’s employment, health and safety practice in Wellington, where his clients included Westpac, IBM, BNZ, port companies and local governments. 14 | SEPTEMBER 2014
It was also at Simpson Grierson that Binnie first encountered sports law. “There’s a huge debate amongst the sports law and non-sports law fraternities as to whether there’s a body of law that can properly be termed sports law,” he says. During this time Binnie acted for a range of national sporting organisations, including swimming, softball, table tennis, cricket, hockey and rugby. “Simpson Grierson were the NZRU’s lawyers from the late ’90s, so that was really when I got involved in the whole regulatory, employment, health and safety, administrative law side of things,” he says. Binnie also served on the board of New Zealand Hockey for seven years and has continued to do pro bono work for this organisation, as well as a number of others. “There’s quite a need for people with legal skills to help out those amateur sports bodies, not even necessarily as a board member or governor – they just need help with basic contracting and managing employee issues,” he says. In 2005, a rare opportunity to join the NZRU’s legal team became available and Binnie made the decision to move in-house. “Of all the work I did, the sports law was the thing that I enjoyed the most,” he says. “There’s no other sports organisation in New Zealand that has full-time lawyers working for it, so if I was going to make the jump into sports law as a career change, this was going to be my one opportunity,” he recalls. “It was the right time and the right opportunity to come on board and try something new.” The variety of work was another factor that drew Binnie to the role, but he admits that the transition wasn’t without its challenges. “I thought I knew a fair bit about rugby and the NZRU, but when I got here I realised I knew virtually nothing. It was a huge shock to go from being a specialist to being a GP and realising just how complicated this business is and how much I had to learn and how complicated the business of rugby is from a legal perspective,” he says.
ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE IN-HOUSE/PRIVATE PRACTICE DIVIDE While there are some specific areas, such as competition law issues, particularly around selling broadcasting rights and implementing salary caps, where external advisers are always briefed, overall Binnie says it’s increasingly rare for the NZRU to brief a law firm. Given the experience and legal talent within the NZRU’s ranks, “we’ve basically taken the decision to resource a lot of our work internally”, he says.
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Intellectual property is another area in which firms are sometimes engaged. “We still use external lawyers for a lot of the IP work because most of it is done overseas. We’ve got trademarks in pretty much every country in the world, so we use an IP specialist firm for that work.” The NZRU tenders out its legal work every five years. “My very first job [at NZRU] was to run the legal services tender and advise my previous firm that they were not the preferred provider of legal services,” he recalls. “That was tough because not only did they have 10 years of institutional knowledge and expertise, but I knew the capability of every person on the team and I’d worked with many of them on Rugby Union work,” he says. “Five years later we ran another tender, and Simpson and Grierson, my former firm, were the successful tender this time.” When considering which firms to work with, Binnie says value for money, fit and institutional knowledge are key considerations, as is availability of partners. “The main thing I’ve found in this business is that we virtually always need a partner, whether that’s to sign off a piece of advice, or to appear in front of the board, or attend a meeting or go to court.”
Binnie says it’s important for firms pitching for in-house work to make it clear that the partners will be the people who will be working on the files and who will be available and accountable for the work. “Rightly or wrongly, we’ve taken the view that that’s what we expect from law firms.”
CHALLENGES AND REWARDS One of the most challenging aspects of Binnie’s role is that “the black letter of the law often does not determine where solutions are found to rugby related issues”, he says. “It’s in the best interests of the sport that that is the case, and we all accept that that’s just part of working in sport, but it does potentially provide quite a challenge to the guardians of the legal profession and the risk managers and the people that draft agreements,” he adds. For Binnie, the most satisfying part of his role has been contributing to the success of the NZRU: “There isn’t an area of the business that legal doesn’t touch on, and the organisation has been successful on and off the pitch, and I like to think that the legal team has played a significant role in that.” NZL
“The black letter of the law often does not determine where solutions are found to rugby related issues”
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CHRISTCHURCH SPECIAL REPORT 2014
Christchurch City Report Lawyers working in Christchurch are busier than they’ve ever been, but there’s more to the story than rebuild work alone
16 | SEPTEMBER 2014
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When asked about the past year, Christchurch’s lawyers all seem to use the same two words to describe the city’s legal market: busy and buoyant. For many firms 2013 was a record-breaking year that saw strong performances across all practice areas, and so far 2014 has been even bigger. With the rebuild now well and truly underway, demand for legal services is high. “I think the real challenge for us as law firms is to keep up with that growth in a way that provides the kind of quality service you want to keep providing,” says Wynn Williams executive chairman Jared Ormsby. “The intensity of the work and the need for quick results I think remains something that is constantly in the minds of all lawyers practising here. The volume of work is another factor; everyone is working pretty intensely.” Whereas before the earthquakes lawyers worked in a familiar and established regulatory environment, Christchurch is now far more fluid, with new regulations regularly introduced. “It’s a very dynamic legal environment,” says Anderson Lloyd partner Jen Crawford. “It’s something of a moving feast in Christchurch, and that’s by necessity because it’s a significant recovery effort.”
INSURANCE WORK: TAILING OFF? Firms interviewed by NZ Lawyer were divided on the question of how much earthquake-related insurance work remains. Some believed that the majority of matters had been resolved or that work levels would begin to decline in the next year, while others predicted there would be at least three more years of significant insurance workflows. Regardless of the amount of work left to be done, most lawyers agreed that the remaining matters were the more complex ones. “Chapman Tripp has undertaken the external legal work for EQC for the claims coming out of the Canterbury earthquakes,” says partner Andrew Woods. “The majority of those claims are now settled. I think that the public underestimates how complicated many of the issues are,” he says, explaining that many of the remaining claims involve situations of damage in buildings with multiple ownership and complex land issues. More than three years on from the earthquakes, lawyers have observed that in many situations insurers are looking to finalise outstanding claims. “We’re seeing the insurance companies keener to reach settlements than they were initially. Precedents
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CHRISTCHURCH SPECIAL REPORT 2014
THE JUSTICE AND EMERGENCY SERVICES PRECINCT
Bordered by Colombo, Tuam, Durham and Lichfield Streets, the $300m Justice and Emergency Services Precinct will bring together all justice and emergency services. The three-building, 40,000sqm precinct will house the Ministry of Justice, the New Zealand Police, the Department of Corrections, St John and the New Zealand Fire Service, as well as civil defence and emergency management agencies. The justice building will have 19 courtrooms for the District Courts, High Court, Māori Land Court, Youth Court, Family Court, Environment Court and other specialist jurisdictions. The precinct will accommodate 1,100 workers and receive approximately 900 visitors each day. This anchor project is the biggest multi-agency government co-location project ever undertaken in New Zealand and is the government’s first major public building project in Christchurch since the earthquakes. Construction will begin this year, with justice employees and the courts to move in around mid-2017, and the precinct to be completed by the end of that year.
18 | SEPTEMBER 2014
have been set and insurance companies want to remove significant unquantified contingent liabilities from their balance sheets,” says Woods. Another trend over the last 12 months is an increasing number of insurers settling domestic claims by insisting that insureds assign not only their house but also their land EQC claims, observes Buddle Findlay senior associate Susan Rowe. “People are reluctant to sign the deeds of assignment,” she says. “I think the insurers are now doing it because people are getting a package from their insurer which includes a sum of money for strengthening foundations, but they’re actually taking that and then selling the property ‘as is, where is’,” she says. “I see a tension between the insurer trying to close their books and the influence of the reinsurer trying to make sure that no one is getting a windfall benefit.” Given the length of time that many insurance disputes have been active for, there has also been a transition from negotiation to litigation in insurance matters. “People are reaching the end of their tether with negotiated settlements. Some of the largerscale disputes that we are acting on are still in train with the insurers, so there’s still an awful lot of work out there,” Rowe says. Although earthquake-related insurance work has been a significant source of work for Christchurch lawyers, it isn’t the only thing keeping insurance specialists busy. “There may be a perception that we’re all beavering away just on earthquake claims, and there was a huge influx of that work after 2011, some of which still remains, but the underlying insurance work that a firm would usually have is still present,” says Rowe.
A NEW DISTRICT PLAN For planning lawyers, the major headline is the Replacement District Plan. While Christchurch City Council reviews its district plan every 10 years, it’s a process that can take years to complete. The Council had commenced the review before the earthquakes, but the process has been accelerated to better facilitate the rebuild. The District Plan Review has been broken into two sections. The first phase will focus on the more pressing issues that need to be addressed, such as subdivision, commercial, industrial, residential, transport, contaminated land and natural hazards. Issues such as heritage, future urban development, rural and coastal will be examined at a later date. As with other work in Christchurch, lawyers can
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expect a large amount of work in a short space of time. Submissions on the plan, which was publicly notified on 27 August, close on 8 October. Crawford predicts there will be a significant amount of work in the coming months as community members and developers have their say on the plan that will guide the shape and form of Christchurch in the years ahead. Hearings will take place in December 2014 and January 2015, and the new land use rules relating to the priority issues are expected to take effect in May 2015.
UNDER CONSTRUCTION With a large number of insurance claims settled and the sites of many damaged buildings cleared, organisations have turned their attention to rebuilding. “A lot of commercial building projects are now starting to get underway, whereas last year we hadn’t noticed that as much,” says Ormsby. “I think the rebuild got off to a little bit of a slow start, but now there’s a lot of commercial buildings going up.”
“In most jurisdictions you have specialist teams of construction lawyers, so I think the big challenge for Christchurch is resourcing” Chapman Tripp partner Brian Clayton agrees. “People wanted to get their insurance money before they start rebuilding, so that took a long time, and then people had to get consents in place for their buildings, and that took a long time as well.” For Duncan Cotterill chief executive Terry McLaughlin, the slow start to construction is not all bad news. “The recovery post the earthquake has taken longer than a lot of people would have thought … but I think the longer, slower level of activity is not a bad thing from a business point of view because otherwise I think that we would run into some issues around resources.”
Brian Clayton Chapman Tripp
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“I think development is what is powering the legal market in Christchurch, in that it has so many flow-on effects” Susan Rowe Buddle Findlay
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One of the resources under pressure is legal expertise. “In New Zealand there aren’t actually many construction lawyers; there’s a lot of people out there that are property lawyers that have probably dabbled in the odd construction contract, but it’s not the same,” says Clayton. “In most jurisdictions you have specialist teams of construction lawyers, so I think the big challenge for Christchurch is resourcing.” Lane Neave partner Bill Dwyer agrees. “I think it’s becoming an area where there is growing recognition that you really do need specialists … I think with construction law it’s becoming really apparent that it is highly technical and very specific,” he says. With large and complex projects such as the Christchurch Hospital and Burwood Hospital rebuild, and the Lyttelton Port rebuild reaching the construction stage, demand for specialist expertise has grown and is only expected to increase. However, a limited number of construction lawyers isn’t the only challenge facing the Christchurch rebuild. “Christchurch is a really hot contracting market,” says Clayton. Because contractors are able to pick and choose which projects they work on, “a lot of thought is going into procurement strategy and how to partner up with the best person on the best terms,” he says. Traditionally, in New Zealand a major project would be put out to tender, but as the market is so competitive Clayton has observed an increase in alternative approaches. “There’s a lot more thought going into strategy and other techniques such as early contractor involvement,” he says. International investment has also added a layer of complexity, with foreign investors often entering joint-venture arrangements with local companies as a way of winning work in the tight-knit Christchurch market. “In Canterbury, often work flows from not only having the skill base but also having the connections and being known in Canterbury,” Dwyer explains.
According to Woods, the size and complexity of the large redevelopment projects, and the involvement of offshore companies with impressive construction and facility management experience, has meant that local firms need to resource work with matching experience. He says Chapman Tripp draws on colleagues in its Auckland and Wellington offices for these projects. The increase in construction work has also generated work for other practice areas, such as banking, commercial and property, and health and safety. “I think development is what is powering the legal market in Christchurch, in that it has so many flow-on effects,” says Rowe. Although it’s still relatively early days for the construction phase, dispute work is also likely to flow from the rebuild. “When you have a boom, particularly in construction, it ultimately leads to some problems in terms of quality or delivery or business performance, and I think there are some indicators that sectors are becoming increasingly stretched, so it wouldn’t surprise me if that results in some more dispute work over time,” predicts McLaughlin. Lawyers expect that construction work is going to be a dominant feature of the Christchurch legal market for at least several years to come. “You just look at what needs to be done and the resources to do it in a small country … it just means it’s going to carry on for quite some time,” says McLaughlin. “The estimates that I’ve heard about the rebuild are that we are about 15% of the way through, and if that’s the case there’s lots of growth still to happen,” Ormsby says. “I would guess we’ve probably got another three years of really busy times and then we may see a bit of more of a plateauing,” he predicts. “There is a lot of exciting work out there and I’m excited to see where the rebuild goes and then what Christchurch looks like post-rebuild, and whether or not the economic activity fuelled by the rebuild can continue to provide for a prosperous Christchurch.”
MORE THAN REBUILD WORK Although earthquake-related work is capturing a lot of attention, the rebuild isn’t the sole driver of activity for Christchurch lawyers, with New Zealand’s strengthening economy also generating work for firms. The firms that NZ Lawyer spoke to have been enjoying a variety of work, including natural resources, energy, private client work, tech matters, family law, general corporate work for SMEs,
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CHRISTCHURCH SPECIAL REPORT 2014
THE REBUILD Residential
Infrastructure
10% Government and community assets
$4bn
$40bn
infrastructure repair
estimated rebuild cost
15% 50% 25%
130,000
residential properties to be repaired or replaced
Commercial
70%
of CBD buildings demolished or awaiting demolition
ANCHOR PROJECTS AND PRECINCTS: DELIVERY TIMELINE The Square, Public Realm (South Frame, Innovation Precinct and Health Precinct)
Bus Interchange
Te Papa Ōtākaro/Avon River Precinct, North Frame and East Frame Public Realm
Health Precinct, Convention Centre Precinct
Retail Precinct, Performing Arts Precinct Canterbury Earthquake Memorial
Cricket Oval
2014
2015
2016
Central Library
2017
The Stadium
Justice and Emergency Services Precinct, Metro Sports Facility
2018
2019
2020
ONGOING PROJECTS: The East Frame, Innovation Precinct, Residential Demonstration Project Source: Christchurch Central Development Unit
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immigration, subdivisional work, M&A, health and safety, and employment matters. Agribusiness, particularly irrigation scheme work, has also been a dominant area for a number of firms. “That normal work that always existed, that’s still there as well, but you have on top of it this overlay of rebuild work, which makes it pretty interesting,” Ormsby says.
“That normal work that always existed, that’s still there as well, but you have on top of it this overlay of rebuild work, which makes it pretty interesting”
LAWYERS EMBRACE THEIR CHANGING ROLE
because the regulatory and legal environment is ever-shifting.” With law firms no longer clustered in the CBD, Christchurch’s lawyers have also been making a greater effort to communicate with one another. This scattering of firms has caused some lawyers to feel isolated, but according to Woods “we’re seeing people making greater efforts to participate in events where they will catch up with their colleagues than they used to make”. In Crawford’s view, the earthquakes and rebuild have offered a unique challenge to the city’s lawyers. “Everyone has a story to tell about their experience
Post-quake life in Christchurch has been anything but business as usual. For the legal profession, one of the key differences has been the rapidly changing regulatory environment, with the many changes aimed at facilitating the significant recovery effort. Lawyers have been busy keeping up with the rapidly evolving legal environment, and communicating with clients regularly about the latest changes. “It’s very different,” says Crawford. “It can be quite tiring, but if we all work together we can deliver something quite special, but it is a different way of advising
Jared Ormsby Wynn Williams
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FIRMS’ NEW DIGS Since the earthquakes law firms have occupied temporary premises spread across Christchurch. These interim offices have often been smaller than firms’ former premises, and lawyers have crammed into these temporary spaces or split their teams across several locations, some of which were not originally built for use as professional services offices. But after a long and very patient wait, law firms are beginning to return to the CBD. Anderson Lloyd is one of the firms that has already returned. According to Crawford, the firm’s new office was the first to receive urban design consent under the blueprint, and the building was also the first multistorey office to be built in the core of the CBD post-quakes. As one of the early returners to the CBD, Anderson Lloyd has received plenty of visits from clients. “There are not a lot of places to go for coffee in the city yet, so we have a lot of contacts and clients who pop in for a coffee and use our space as a co-working hub,” Crawford says. “We were not sure how all of our people would cope with being back in town because there’s a lot of memories, and not good memories, but it’s been a really positive experience.” Likewise, Buddle Findlay’s city homecoming has been a happy one. “We moved in the week before Christmas [2013] because staff really wanted to get in somewhere that was their permanent home,” says Rowe. The firm has also been a magnet for clients and colleagues, with Buddle Findlay playing host to Law Society functions as other firms wait to return to the city. A number of professionals have also toured the new office to view the layout. “The big debate here is open plan versus offices for lawyers,” Rowe explains. “We split: our litigation team is in offices and our commercial team is open plan.” Wynn Williams has also split on the open-plan and offices issue. The majority of the firm’s lawyers have spent several years working in a warehouse-style building, and while some practitioners have opted to continue working in an open-plan setting, other teams are understandably looking forward to having their own office space again. The firm is scheduled to move into its new home in October and Ormsby predicts the real highlight will be everyone working together at one office after several years of having the firm spread across three premises. “I think everyone’s really excited about being together,” he says. Safety has been a key consideration for the firm in finding a new home – “we told our staff we would only move back into the safest of buildings,” Ormsby explains – and the new premises has been constructed to 180% of earthquake code on base isolators. Similarly, reuniting staff has been a priority at Lane Neave. Construction of a new building has commenced and the firm will be moving in within the next year, bidding farewell to the four separate Christchurch offices it has occupied since the quakes. For Duncan Cotterill, the focus has been more on giving staff the opportunity to spread out. In its temporary premises, the firm’s lawyers have crammed into half the office space that the firm used to occupy, and the move to new premises, which is slated for later this year, is eagerly anticipated by staff. Chapman Tripp’s Christchurch team faces a slightly longer wait for their new office – the firm has signed a lease agreement for a new building, and construction will begin soon, with an expected move date of early 2016. But, according to Woods, the wait will be worth it: “We see moving back to the CBD as an important part of our support for Christchurch and an opportunity to provide our clients and staff bigger and better premises than we had before.”
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Buddle Findlay
Chapman Tripp
Lane Neave
Wynn Williams
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of the earthquakes. In some respects it’s brought the community together and we’re actually talking more openly than possibly may have been the case in the past – and that can only be a good thing,” she says. In her opinion, an adversarial approach is not necessarily appropriate in a recovery environment, and there has been a trend towards greater dialogue, more negotiated solutions, and more collegiality and collaboration in the local profession. Pro bono work has also been on the rise. This shift may also be recasting lawyers’ roles. “If we keep that dialogue going, then legal advisers will be used for construction of positive opportunities, rather than debate,” Crawford predicts. “I don’t think the community needs unnecessary litigation; I think the community is looking for solutions and opportunities that will enable us all to move forward. From a legal point of view, I think that’s where lawyers can add value, where they sit down and provide solutions to clients.” Although the experience of lawyers in Christchurch is unique, Crawford believes it holds
“You just look at what needs to be done and the resources to do it in a small country… it just means it’s going to carry on for quite some time” valuable lessons for the wider legal profession in relation to being nimble, being responsive to the changing needs of clients, working in compromised environments, learning to adapt, and solving problems. “It’s definitely a unique environment to be operating in. It’s been for many of us one of the most rewarding phases of our careers. Out of tragedy comes opportunity and the ability to give something back to the community.” NZL
Terry McLaughlin Duncan Cotterill
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Finalists he New Zealand Law Awards is the highlight of the legal industry calendar, recognising excellence and the outstanding achievements of those in the business. Over four months, NZ Lawyer sought nominations from across the legal industry, and we were inundated with hundreds of nominations from across New Zealand. Congratulations to all firms, in-house teams and lawyers who are finalists in the 2014 New Zealand Law Awards. For more information about this event and to book your table, visit lawawards.co.nz.
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Regional/Suburban Law Firm of the Year Downie Stewart Lawyers Ellice Tanner Inder Lynch Neimand Peebles Hoult Whitmarsh Law WRMK Lawyers
Boutique Law Firm of the Year BlackmanSpargo Rural Law Limited Chen Palmer Ernst & Young Law Hazel Armstrong Law Media Arts Lawyers Neimand Peebles Hoult Sanderson Weir Limited Sue Barker Charities Law TGT Legal Webb Henderson
WATERSTONE Large Law Firm of the Year
Employment Specialist Law Firm of the Year
Bell Gully Buddle Findlay Chapman Tripp Duncan Cotterill Kensington Swan Minter Ellison Rudd Watts Russell McVeagh Simpson Grierson
Business Central legal team Dundas Street Employment Lawyers Dyhrberg Drayton Employment Law Goldstein Ryder Lawyers LangtonHudsonButcher McBride Davenport James
CANON Intellectual Property Specialist Law Firm of the Year
PRENDOS Property and Construction Specialist Law Firm of the Year
AJ Park Baldwins CreateIP Hudson Gavin Martin James & Wells
Greenwood Roche Chisnall Madison Hardy Meredith Connell Queen City Law Thompson Blackie Biddles
LEGAL PERSONNEL Employer of Choice Employer of Choice (0–49 Employees) AlexanderDorrington Armstrong Murray Madison Hardy Niemand Peebles Hoult Stevens Orchard Lawyers Thompson Blackie Biddles Limited
Employer of Choice Employer of Choice (50–99 Employees) (100+ Employees) Anderson Lloyd Lawyers Anthony Harper Chapman Tripp Cavell Leitch DAC Beachcroft Glaister Ennor Duncan Cotterill James & Wells Minter Ellison Rudd Lane Neave Watts Russell McVeagh Simpson Grierson
CROWE HORWATH Mid-size Law Firm of the Year Anderson Lloyd Anthony Harper Cavell Leitch Hesketh Henry Lane Neave Lowndes Associates Mayne Wetherell
Litigation and Dispute Resolution Specialist Law Firm of the Year Gilbert Walker Jones Fee Lee Salmon Long Parker & Associates Rainey Law Wilson Harle
AIG INSURANCE Insurance Specialist Law Firm of the Year DAC Beachcroft Grant Shand Kennedys McElroys
LEADR – ASSOCIATION OF DISPUTE RESOLVERS Mediator of the Year Carol Powell Maria Dew Paul Hutcheson Peter Franks Royden Hindle
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Young In-house Lawyer of the Year
Young Private Practice Lawyer of the Year
Heidi Badger, Canterbury District Health Board Frances Hook, Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority Susan Newell, Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority Lucy Taylor, Holcim New Zealand Ltd Jacinda Bragg, Public Defence Service Brendan Wright, Southern Cross Healthcare Brent Norling, Waterstone Insolvency Michael Green, Xero
Banking & Finance In-house Team of the Year ANZ Bank ASB Bank BNZ – Bank of New Zealand Heartland Bank Westpac New Zealand
In-house Lawyer of the Year Charles Bolt, Fletcher Building Lisa Fong, GCSB Martin Hunter, IAG New Zealand Andrew Peskett, Metlifecare Dave Whiteridge, NZ Transport Agency Mark Brent, Westpac
Claire Harmsworth, Bell Gully Ben Thompson, Hazel Armstrong Law Luke Hayward, Meares Williams James Hawes, Simpson Grierson Sarah Scott, Simpson Grierson Sam Greenwood, Thompson Blackie Biddles Jeremy Johnson, Wynn Williams
Insurance In-house Team of the Year AIG Canterbury District Health Board IAG New Zealand VERO
RUSSELL McVEAGH In-house Team of the Year ASB Legal Services IAG New Zealand New Zealand Treasury NZ Transport Agency The Guardians of NZ Superannuation Z Energy
M&A Deal of the Year
Consumer, Media & Tech Deal of the Year
Beijing Capital acquisition of Transpacific Waste Management FIRMS: Chapman Tripp, Russell McVeagh
BANKS: First NZ Capital, Goldman Sachs IN-HOUSE TEAMS: Fidelity Life Assurance, Tower
Carter Holt Harvey's sale of paper and packaging business to Oji Holdings and Innovation Network Corporation of Japan (INCJ) FIRM: Bell Gully IN-HOUSE TEAM: Carter Holt Harvey
Foodstuffs Auckland Limited and Foodstuffs Wellington Co-operative Society Limited merger (Foodstuffs North Island Limited) FIRM: DLA Phillips Fox BANK: Reserve Bank IN-HOUSE TEAM: Commerce Commission, Financial Markets Authority, Takeovers Panel
MediaWorks sale and debt restructuring FIRMS: Bell Gully, Chapman Tripp BANKS: JP Morgan, KordaMentha, Oaktree Capital, Rabobank, RBS, TPG Capital, Westpac
Insurance Australia Group (IAG) acquisition of Lumley Insurance FIRMS: Russell McVeagh, Webb Henderson IN-HOUSE TEAM: IAG New Zealand
Wynyard Group IPO FIRM: Chapman Tripp IN-HOUSE TEAM: Jade Corp
EBOS Group Limited acquisition of Symbion FIRM: Chapman Tripp IN-HOUSE TEAM: EBOS Fidelity acquisition of Tower's life insurance business FIRMS: Chapman Tripp, DLA Phillips Fox, Simpson Grierson 28 | SEPTEMBER 2014
CM Health strategic agreement with IBM and Health Innovation Hub FIRM: Chapman Tripp
Woolworths acquisition of EziBuy FIRM: Russell McVeagh
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Capital Markets Deal of the Year
International Deal of the Year
Genesis IPO FIRMS: Chapman Tripp, Russell McVeagh
Cheung Kong acquisition Brookfield sale and AMP purchase of EnviroWaste of stake in Powerco FIRM: Russell McVeagh FIRMS: Bell Gully, Minter Ellison Rudd Watts Further finalists to be announced on the night
Meridian IPO FIRMS: Bell Gully, Russell McVeagh Mighty River Power IPO FIRMS: Bell Gully, Chapman Tripp, Russell McVeagh BANKS: First NZ Capital, Goldman Sachs, Macquarie Bank Z Energy IPO FIRMS: Chapman Tripp, Russell McVeagh IN-HOUSE TEAMS: Guardians of New Zealand Superannuation Fund, Infratil, Z Energy
New Zealand Deal of the Year Solid Energy financial restructuring FIRMS: Chapman Tripp, Simpson Grierson BANKS: ANZ, BNZ, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Westpac NZ Further finalists to be announced on the night
Managing Partner of the Year Roger Partridge, Bell Gully Julian Clarke, Cavell Leitch Andrew Poole and Mark Reese, Chapman Tripp
Bill Dwyer, Lane Neave Mark Lownes, Lownes Associates Mark Weenich, Minter Ellison Rudd Watts Kevin Jaffe, Simpson Grierson
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Sponsors AIG
Canon
AIG is a leading international insurance organisation serving customers in more than 130 countries. Operating in New Zealand since 1970, AIG serves commercial, institutional and individual customers through one of the most extensive worldwide property-casualty networks of any insurer.
Canon New Zealand is a leading imaging organisation, actively inspiring with imaginative ideas that enable people to connect, communicate and achieve more than they thought possible. To best partner with businesses across New Zealand, our goal at Canon Business Solutions is to help you do what you do better. We have solutions for all your technology needs, from printing and copying, connecting your branches, to educating and sharing.
AIG’s Financial Lines provides innovative management liability, cyber liability, mergers and acquisitions liability and specific professional indemnity protection tailored to fit the individual needs of New Zealand and multinational organisations. Our global capacity, expertise and claims capabilities, coupled with our local presence, provide clients with the tools needed to mitigate the emerging board-level risks they face while striving towards a successful future. CONTACT Ryan Clark, manager, financial lines P: 09 355 3144 E: ryan.t.clark@aig.com W: www.aig.co.nz
CONTACT Madeleine Furley, public relations and communications consultant P: 09 926 9352 M: 021 448 336 W: www.canon.co.nz
Crowe Horwath
LEADR
Crowe Horwath offers a full range of accounting services, including tax, audit and business advice, across our 22 New Zealand offices.
With a membership of 2,700 across New Zealand, Australia and the Asia-Pacific, LEADR is Australasia’s largest membership organisation for ADR practitioners. LEADR promotes the use of ADR and supports members with information and development.
As part of the global Crowe Horwath network, we have the resources and proven experience to maximise our clients’ growth potential. Clients value our practical, commercial, industry-specific advice and our ability to translate accounting information and financial reports into pragmatic advice. We cater for all sizes of business and work with you to identify and implement the right structures, funding options and efficiencies to deliver your aspirations for growth, profitability and personal wealth. CONTACT Marnus Beylefeld, associate principal P: 09 968 8511 M: 021 162 1431 E: marnus.beylefeld@crowehorwath.co.nz
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LEADR began training New Zealand mediators in 1996, and LEADR training is internationally recognised by the Mediator Standards Board in Australia and the International Mediators Institute. LEADR has been accrediting mediators for over 15 years and LEADR mediator accreditation is widely recognised in New Zealand and Australia. CONTACT Catherine Cooper, general manager New Zealand P: 0800 453 237 E: leadr@leadr.co.nz W: www.leadr.co.nz
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Legal Personnel
Prendos
Legal Personnel is a full-service specialist legal recruitment company recruiting permanent, temporary and contract positions for senior associates, solicitors, legal executives, legal secretaries and administration positions (including practice managers, accounting and trust accounts staff).
Prendos is a leading consultant to the property and construction industry. With more than 25 years’ experience across all building types and market sectors, the company delivers independent, expert advice through a network of offices across New Zealand.
Market mapping, searches, identifying talent for the future, succession recruitment and helping small firms and sole practitioners transition to new firms successfully are all in a day’s work. Our career workshops offer clarity and confidence in finding purpose in what we do and to be able to articulate the value you bring to the role you take on. CONTACT Judith Eller, director P: 09 359 9244 E: judith.eller@legalpersonnel.co.nz W: www.legalpersonnel.co.nz
Prendos’ services cover the complete spectrum of the property life cycle, including acquisition, occupancy, development and disposal. Project management Fire engineering Structural engineering Residential building surveying Quantity surveying Commercial property Architecture consultancy Property valuation Dispute resolution CONTACT Desiree Prendergast, new business manager P: 09 970 2615 or 021 637 338 E: desiree@prendos.co.nz W: www.prendos.co.nz
Russell McVeagh
Waterstone
Russell McVeagh is an awardwinning firm with an established history of excellence.
Waterstone is an innovative insolvency firm based in Auckland. Operating since 2006, the practice has grown to 14 staff, including an in-house legal team of four who have a reputation for creating case law and enforcing directors’ liabilities.
Widely regarded as New Zealand’s premier law firm, we employ more than 250 lawyers across our offices in Auckland and Wellington. Our solicitors advise across nine key practice groups: competition, corporate, employment, environment planning and natural resources, finance, litigation, property, public law and tax. We represent leading corporations, financial institutions, state-owned enterprises, government entities and multinational companies on their most complex, challenging and high-profile transactions. Russell McVeagh is committed to understanding our clients and providing commercially focused solutions.
Waterstone is setting a new benchmark in what creditors can expect. CONTACT Steven Khov, general manager P: 0800 256 733 or 021 649 585 E: steven@waterstone.co.nz W: www.waterstone.co.nz
CONTACT P: 09 367 8000 W: www.russellmcveagh.com SEPTEMBER 2014 | 31
FEATURE / INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
Helping businesses work:
New Zealand’s employment law landscape 32 | SEPTEMBER 2014
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The employment law landscape has been a dynamic one over the past 12 months, to say the least. NZ Lawyer caught up with some of the practice area’s top practitioners and each one told us that it’s been an incredibly busy year, what with Law and Colbert v Woodford House and Iona Boards of Trustees shaking up statutory minimum remuneration issues, and Terranova Homes and Care v Service and Food Workers Union bringing concerns around gender-based pay discrimination to a head. Here’s an overview of what’s happened, what’s happening, and a sneak peek at what’s yet to come.
KEY CASES
Mackenzie Pickert talks to some of the country’s top employment lawyers about the trials and triumphs of the past year, and the top trends going forward
A number of landmark cases considering ‘minimum rights’ entitlements and restructuring and redun dancy have made headlines over the last 12 months. Megan Richards, Minter Ellison Rudd Watts partner and head of the firm’s Wellington employment law team, says these cases are especially significant because they affect large numbers of employees and employers across a range of industries. “On one hand there is a need to ensure that workers are being fairly remunerated for work carried out, but on the other hand it is important to recognise that some outcomes from these cases, if applied strictly … would mean some businesses would no longer be solvent and would need to close.” Law and Colbert v Woodford House and Iona Boards of Trustees [2014] NZEmpC 25, for instance, concerned the entitlement of matrons to statutory minimum remuneration for sleepovers. Simpson Grierson senior associate Simon Lapthorne notes that in this case the Employment Court found that when undertaking sleepovers the matrons were working, and accordingly they were covered by the provisions of the Minimum Wage Act 1983. The Court also confirmed that the Minimum Wage Act 1983 applied to salaried employees. “The case is significant because affected employees can claim arrears of pay going back six years, and the Court's decision has potential ramifications for a large number of employers who employ staff who sleep over on the job,” says Lapthorne. Richards adds that recent cases focusing on the area of restructuring and redundancy have proved significant as well, as previously the law was relatively settled under a number of Court of Appeal decisions.
RECENT HEADLINE CASES Air New Zealand Ltd v Kerr Waters v Alpine Energy Ltd Tan v Morningstar Institute of Education Ltd T/A Morningstar Preschool Victoria Law and Others v Board of Trustees of Woodford House Brake v Grace Team Accounting Service and Food Workers Union Nga Ringa Tota Inc v Terranova Homes and Care Ltd R v Watchorn (Though technically a criminal case, R v Watchorn has potential ramifications for employers, who may increasingly seek to involve the police in situations where employees misappropriate their confidential information or other property, particularly in the digital space.)
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“In practical terms, it is now technically more difficult for an employer to make changes to its organisational structure without obtaining legal advice throughout all steps of the process, including implementation – to be confident that the actions taken are likely to be legally robust if challenged,” she says. Tan v Morningstar Institute of Education T/A Morningstar Preschool is a perfect recent example. In this case, the Court came to the conclusion that the information provided to Tan as part of the consultation process prior to her being made redundant was materially false, misleading and insufficient to meet the obligation to provide her with all relevant information under the Act. Swarbrick Beck Mackinnon partner and New Zealand Law Society vice president Kathryn Beck says that, in making this determination, the Court examined the financial information in detail and commented on some of the accounting practices used to achieve various outcomes. “This case was significant in that it reiterated that it is not enough for an employer to simply assert that a dismissal for redundancy was for genuine business reasons,” says Beck. “It must justify the dismissal and the court can and will enquire into the merits of that decision.” Another headline case, Terranova Homes and Care Limited v Service and Food Workers Union [2013] NZEmpC 157, could potentially dramatically refocus the way businesses assess remuneration. The Employment Court held that workers in female-
EMPLOYMENT LAW STATS 31% of all New Zealand-based lawyers spend at least some of their time on employment law cases. This is up from 21.9% of all practising certificate holders in 2011. This makes it the sixth most common practice area, after corporate/commercial, property, civil litigation, trusts/estates and family. On a regional basis, 42.1% of employment law specialists were located in Auckland and 25.4% in the Wellington area. According to the most recent data (compiled in 2011), in Gisborne, 37.5% of all branch members spend some time working in employment law, although there are none who spend more than half their time in the field. Other areas with a relatively high proportion of lawyers spending some time on employment law are Otago (33.7%), Whanganui (32.8%) and Nelson (32.6%). 34 | SEPTEMBER 2014
dominated industries could potentially compare their wages to those of workers in other industries to determine if those wages were affected by sex discrimination. Terranova Homes has appealed the judgment and it is likely that a number of potential claimants are awaiting the outcome of this appeal. Kiely Thompson Caisley partner Peter Kiely counselled Business New Zealand in the Employment Court and Court of Appeal regarding the case. “If the Employment Court finds that there has been remunerative discrimination against female employees based on gender, higher wage rates could be imposed by the Employment Court under the Equal Pay Act,” he says. “As a result and depending on the outcome of the matter, the case could have significant effects on pay rates in New Zealand.”
NOTABLE TRENDS Practitioners in the employment law space are fortunate in that workflow tends to remain steady despite overarching economic conditions. However, the variety of cases landing on lawyers’ desks does fluctuate over time. For instance, Beck notes that a surge in cases in the redundancy area and in relation to disclosure have meant that more dismissals for redundancy are being challenged, and that employers are increasingly having to review their consultation processes. “With the tighter economic environment and increased competition, we are also seeing an increase in the willingness to enforce restraints of trade,” she says. “Contrary to the popular belief that they are not worth the paper they are written on, the Courts will enforce restraints to the extent they are reasonable as long as they are a binding term.” Kiely agrees, saying his firm has also noticed an upswing in the number of restraint of trade cases over the past 12 months. “I have worked on a number recently, one of which found its way to the Employment Relations Authority,” he says. “Of course, many of these cases are resolved without formal determinations or judgments on the basis of undertakings. It may be that this growth in activity was a result of the economic conditions, but the trend has continued throughout the recovery.” LangtonHudsonButcher partner Andrew Schirnack adds that increased M&A activity has
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also led to a “significant” upswing in advisory work connected with commercial transactions over the past year. “The fact that parties are seeking specialist advice indicates that the commercial sector is becoming better educated about the risks of non-compliance with employment law,” he says. Russell McVeagh partner Richard McIlraith says he’s also noticed a continuing increase in work related to health and safety, something reiterated by many of the other practitioners NZ Lawyer spoke to. “There are at least three aspects of this: first, dayto-day advisory work on obligations, processes, etc.; second, health and safety related disputes/litigation; [and] third, advising in relation to workplace accidents, from the handling of investigations, including legal privilege matters, through to court appearances in the event of prosecution by WorkSafe or another body,” he says. Furthermore, McIlraith believes the number of issues arising for clients that are requiring the
involvement of an independent investigator is also on the rise. “Two particular examples come to mind. First, with the heightened awareness and focus on workplace bullying, more claims appear to be being made and … there appears to be a growing expectation that independent investigators will be used. Second, independent investigators are frequently being used in relation to ‘whistle-blower’ allegations,” he says.
LOOKING AHEAD Going forward, most members of our panel appear to agree that health and safety and restraints of trade will be front and centre. “I believe there will be an increased focus on health and safety in the workplace, says Lapthorne. “The Health and Safety Reform Bill, which is currently before a select committee, is expected to come into force in April next year and is New Zealand's biggest health and safety reform in 20 years. This reform, which has already seen the
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FEATURE / INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
establishment of WorkSafe, signals a new era with a focus on workplace health and safety issues.” Lapthorne also believes we will see a rise in disputes related to social media. “We have seen a number of employment disputes arising from incidents involving social media,” he says. “Some of the issues coming before the Authority have involved online misconduct, damage to employer reputation, and the crossover between professional and personal interactions between employees on social media platforms.” Schirnack agrees, adding that, in an increasingly digital age, employers are recognising that there is significant business value – in the form of confidential or commercially sensitive information and intellec tual property – stored on their computers and other digital devices, which can easily be copied and
disseminated by employees. “We have seen a significant increase in litigation focusing on the misuse of digital property, and I predict this area will continue to grow,” he says. He says employers are also learning that it is a myth that restraints of trade are ‘not worth the paper they are written on’. “I expect increased use by sophisticated employers of carefully crafted restraints of trade and litigation related to their enforcement,” says Schirnack. Finally, while not technically on the cards, nearly all the lawyers interviewed for this article expressed a desire to see the Holidays Act 2003 revisited. A recent study conducted by Simpson Grierson found that, for many businesses, the Act does not fit the many and varied work patterns of the modern workplace, and that a new, user-friendly
WHAT DO YOU ENJOY MOST ABOUT WORKING IN EMPLOYMENT LAW? “It matters. Whether you look at it from a social or economic perspective, employment relationships and the workplace are a fundamental part of our society ... It is also constantly evolving, as you would expect given its function, which makes it interesting and challenging for practitioners in the area.” Kathryn Beck, Swarbrick Beck Mackinnon
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“I am excited by the interesting and varied nature of the work. Employment law involves litigation and disputes as well as advisory work and generally no two days are the same. The human element ensures it is never dull!” Simon Lapthorne, Simpson Grierson
“What keeps me motivated is the diversity of the work in the employment law field. Every day is different and a challenge. And, of course, helping clients come up with practical solutions for their problems is always interesting and rewarding. Also, helping people achieve what they consider a fair and reasonable result is mutually desirable and good for society.” Peter Kiely, Kiely Thompson Caisley
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piece of legislation is required. “Eighty per cent of respondents to the survey did not find the Holidays Act easy to apply,” says Lapthorne, who adds that his firm would like to see the implementation of one formula for calculating all types of leave (instead of the current four formulas) and accrual and payment of leave in hours. Richards agrees, noting that the current legislation is no longer relevant when it comes to modern employment realities. Looking ahead, she also believes the current Bill proposing to amend the Employment Relations Act would address some practical concerns. However, following the resignation of John Banks (and the National Party’s subsequent parking of the Bill), it is unlikely to be introduced if there is a change of government.
“The variety – no two cases are the same! On any given day, we could be providing health and safety advice to an employer, assisting another client in investigating serious misconduct, and then providing immigration advice to Nigella Lawson (as we did earlier this year!).” Megan Richards, Minter Ellison Rudd Watts
Overall, however, the future looks bright for the employment law sector. With a steady stream of diverse cases flowing through and a number of key decisions likely to have significant implications for many New Zealand businesses, the nation’s employment lawyers are unlikely to sit idle any time soon. “Employment lawyers are useful both during times of recession and economic buoyancy and this helps practitioners ride the economic waves,” says Schirnack. “In times of economic buoyancy, we have more instructions linked to corporate transactions, development of incentive and retention programs, investment in protective measures such as compliance training, and policy development and litigating issues of ‘principle’ even when settlement may be the cheaper option.” NZL
“Every day is different and you are dealing with ‘real issues’, which means it is never boring – far from it! I also enjoy that you have exposure to many different industries and workplaces.” Richard McIlraith, Russell McVeagh
“While it’s a long time since I have been shocked, I am still intrigued by the bad, and regularly appalling, behaviour engaged in by employees at all levels of seniority. So, in terms of the fact patterns, there’s little chance of boredom. The fact that the area is regularly subject to amendment or evolution, and there is always scope to make advances with case law, makes for an intellectually engaging area.” Andrew Schirnack, LangtonHudsonButcher
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PROFILE / STEVE HASZARD
“We’ve managed to achieve that growth just through bringing exceptional young lawyers in and providing them with opportunities and allowing them to grow the practice from within”
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Chasing new frontiers Meredith Connell managing partner Steve Haszard talks to NZ Lawyer about the firm’s incredible transformation The growth of Meredith Connell had gone largely unnoticed by the legal industry, but now the secret is out. When managing partner Steve Haszard joined the firm as a law clerk in 1998, it was very much a firm set up to deal with criminal prosecution work stemming from the Crown Solicitor’s Warrant for Auckland. By the time Haszard made managing partner in May last year, the firm was almost unrecognisable, having added Crown entities and commercial clients to its traditionally central government client base, and introduced new practice areas such as employment, corporate, and resource management.
PIONEERING PARTNERSHIP Although the dependable flow of Crown Warrant work has dominated much of the firm’s 92-year history, in 2000 the firm decided to branch out. “The then partners decided that it would be a good idea to diversify their legal offering, so they started pushing out into other areas,” Haszard says. “Initially it was other areas of litigation, primarily on behalf of government or government-related organisations, but since then it’s diversified into a full-spectrum commercial law firm.” According to Haszard, the decision was a pragmatic one. “Having all your eggs in one legal basket, so to speak, probably didn’t make a lot of business sense,” he says. Although a solicitor at the firm has held the Auckland Crown Warrant since Meredith Connell’s inception (“you get to the age and stage where you’re so big and so efficient at dealing with [Warrant work] that it actually makes it difficult for possible alternative providers to really get a look in,” Haszard says), the decision to diversify was taken partly to insulate the firm in the event that
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PROFILE / STEVE HASZARD
MEREDITH CONNELL, THEN AND NOW 1998
2014
Partners
11
31
Total headcount
57
206
Offices
Auckland
Auckland and Wellington
Criminal litigation, commercial property
Commercial property, compliance and risk assurance, corporate, criminal litigation, employment, health and medical law, health and safety, infrastructure and projects, resource management, insolvency and debt recovery, insurance and reinsurance, public and local government law, regulatory advisory, regulatory and commercial litigation.
Practice areas
“Having all your eggs in one legal basket, so to speak, probably didn’t make a lot of business sense”
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GROWING ORGANICALLY
additional talent was required. Here, too, an organic growth strategy has been the approach of choice. “We’ve managed to achieve that growth just through bringing exceptional young lawyers in and providing them with opportunities and allowing them to grow the practice from within, and I think if you do it that way then you do have a much better chance of retaining your unique culture,” Haszard says. In August the firm named eight new partners, all of them internal promotions. “One of the things we’re seeing with mergers and acquisitions of other law firms [is that] there is a clash of cultures sometimes and some culture has to be subsumed by the other, and that can be difficult. But we haven’t faced that because it’s been organic growth.”
After the firm’s initial foray into other litigation work, it became obvious that a commercial arm was also needed, followed by a resource management practice, a construction team, and finance capabili ties. The firm is currently pushing into infrastructure and projects and is also setting up an insurance advisory practice. According to Haszard, these changes have been incremental, and the addition of new practice groups was the result of recognising existing clients’ need for service in other areas. “Especially for big clients, having one provider who understands the whole of the business and what the business is trying to achieve is obviously a real driver for clients, and it’s a real value-add,” he says. In order to keep up with growing client demand,
One of the most interesting things about Meredith Connell’s growth is that the firm's expansion has gone largely unnoticed. “I think because people wrongly had us pigeon holed as just the Crown Solicitor’s firm for Auckland, which in fairness we were for a while, as we were picking up and branching out to more government work and Crown entity work, we were able to keep below the radar,” Haszard says. But now that the firm has moved more into the commercial sphere and is taking on nongovernment clients, it is increasingly finding itself in direct competition with commercial firms, and becoming much harder to ignore.
central government decided to make changes to the Warrant system. The firm’s expansion began modestly, initially by leveraging off existing clients and litigation talent to expand into new areas. Two partners moved away from Warrant-related matters and started conducting litigation work on behalf of other government entities. By the time Haszard made partner in 2004, momentum had started to build and other young lawyers were also moving into new practice areas. In the last 10 years, the firm has doubled in size and contestable revenues have increased by approximately 330%. These days, work from the Warrant accounts for just 30% of the firm’s revenue – a far cry from the firm Haszard joined in 1998.
UNDER THE RADAR
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“We are very quickly approaching the size and scale of some of the existing big commercial firms in New Zealand,” Haszard says. “We have a slightly different product offering in the sense that we don’t necessarily take on the pure commercial cases that they do at the moment, but we certainly are an alternative provider to them for some of that work, and I think we’re starting to get noticed now.”
“We wouldn’t rule it out if our organic growth plan led us into that, but at this stage between Auckland and Wellington we think we’re picking up most of the needs that our clients have,” says Haszard. “You never say never, but at this stage we’ll pause and take a breath and consolidate Wellington.”
SETTING UP SHOP IN WELLINGTON
For Haszard, playing a role in the firm’s growth has been one of the highlights of his career. “It’s been really exciting to be involved in the start of this build … and be involved with sensational lawyers who had the vision to go out and start building a practice,” he says. “One of the exciting things is we don’t necessarily know where this is going to end. We certainly have practice areas that we’re pushing hard into at the moment in a very concerted way, and if they come off I’ve got no doubt that there will be a continued growth spurt. We always think that at some stage the growth will probably need to tail off, but there’s just no sign of it at this stage.” NZL
The firm recently opened its new Wellington office to better serve its central government and Crown entity clients. “Notwithstanding that on any given day there would be four or five of our partners in Wellington anyway, we really needed to commit to it on a permanent basis,” Haszard says. “We also recognised that there is some real potential for us to grow further in Wellington, and in order to do that you actually have to … show commitment to the local market.” Given its continued expansion, does Meredith Connell have plans to open additional offices?
THE NEXT STEP
“One of the exciting things is we don’t necessarily know where this is going to end”
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PROFILE / ANU CHENGAPPA
Anu Chengappa:
Law of the jungle Think your job as a lawyer is tough? Try battling corruption, prejudice and the timber mafia to make sure the tigers of India survive
“Time is crucial if a company is chopping down trees in a protected area, so if someone calls in the middle of the night and says they need you in court the next morning, you have to be ready to go�
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It was a normal morning in Bangalore – hot, dusty, and crowded. As Anu Chengappa slipped behind the wheel of her car for the drive across town to the High Court of Karnataka, her thoughts were full of the challenges that day’s case would present. How would she get the judge to understand that the needs of the ecosystem were greater than the needs of the transport lobby fighting for a highway right through the middle of a biodiversity hotspot in the nearby Western Ghats? A mile down the road her thoughts were, jarringly, forced towards an even more immediate matter. She was pressing the brake pedal and nothing was happening. She tried again and again, suddenly aware of her speed and the huge array of potential obstacles up ahead. Nothing was happening. “Maybe it was divine inter vention,” she says, “but somehow I managed to shift into first gear and manoeuvre the car to a forced halt without hitting anything or anyone.” Disaster averted, she left the car by the road and continued to court in an auto rickshaw. Later, she found that her brakes had been tampered with, and the chief suspect was the transport lobby and timber mafia she was fighting in court that day.
CALLING OF THE WILD Rewind a decade and a half. Chengappa, the daughter of a successful Bangalore lawyer, had cruised through her LLB and was keen to get a postgraduate degree. Being young, aware of the nascent environmental movement, and from the richly endowed Coorg district of this UNESCO-listed and famously wildlife-filled corner of India (it has 10% of the country’s tigers and 25% of its elephants), environmental law was a natural choice for her LLM specialisation. And in knuckling down to the intensive research needed for her dissertation, Chengappa crossed paths with some of the leading conservationists of the time, like KM Chinnappa and Praveen Bhargav, who were doing lots of pioneering fieldwork at the same time as taking on the entire system with their grassroots conservation movement. “They had people threatening them and making their lives an absolute living hell,” says Chengappa; “… they and later Sanjay Gubbi [of Panthera] were incredibly inspirational to me.” She quickly recognised that all the significant issues were ending up in court, there to flounder due simply to a lack of proper legal representation.
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PROFILE / ANU CHENGAPPA
So as a young lawyer she had found her calling. Now, as a fully qualified independent lawyer, Chengappa has a busy general practice spanning everything from land and civil cases to family law. But she’s been applying her legal (particularly litigating) skills to the environmental cause that is so close to her heart, “often 24/7”, continually over the past 12 years. “Sometimes my other cases have suffered,” she says. “Time is crucial if a company has started an illegal construction or is chopping down trees in a protected area, so if someone calls in the middle of the night and says they need you to present a
NO HIGHWAY: SIGNIFICANT VICTORY IN THE LEGAL BATTLE FOR THE WESTERN GHATS National Highways 67 and 212 slice right through the heart of the Bandipur National Park, an 800sq km sanctuary for tigers, leopards, langur monkeys, mugger crocodiles and many other species. That means roadkill, disruption of wildlife corridors, the spread of invasive toxic plant species, and more logging and poaching. Something needed to be done. Forest officers requested a night closure of the two highways, and on 3 June 2009 the deputy commissioner of Chamrajnagar issued a closure order to night-time traffic from 9pm to 6am. Just a week later, however, the closure order was withdrawn as various parties opposing the night closure of the two highways filed a total of nine writ petitions. Anu Chengappa represented the Conservation India group, which itself engaged in intensive lobbying, and the state government filed an affidavit endorsing the night closure, based on ecological and biological grounds. Subsequently, many hearings took place in the High Court, where Chengappa put forth several important arguments that drew support from the Karnataka Government Counsel. Finally, on 9 March 2010, the High Court of Karnataka ordered the withdrawal of the order through which the highways had been reopened to night-time traffic, and held that the closure was extremely important to protect wildlife. Following the night closure of the Bandipur highways, the legal precedent was applied to get similar closures in three other reserves in other parts of India. Meanwhile, the wildlife of Bandipur continues to enjoy peaceful nights.
Source: Sanjay Gubbi/NCF/Panthera
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case in court the next morning, you have to be ready to go.” And almost all that work has been on a pro bono basis. (She charges for basic expenses incurred, but only “when the client can afford it”.)
CONSERVATION OR SELF-PRESERVATION? In the southern Indian context, fighting for tigers and other species in these still rather special but fragile parts of the world has little of the cachet and appeal it would have in the West. “Your credibility as a lawyer here is based on the fees you can charge, so if you’re not charging much people think your legal skills aren’t up to scratch and so you can’t find good work,” says Chengappa. “A lot of people still think that people involved in conservation are wild and crazy.” Courts and judges are also often none too receptive, and one could argue for good reason. “We’re an overlitigated nation and the courts are overloaded with matters varying from livelihood issues to the very basics of existence,” says Chengappa. “When we come in talking about saving trees and tigers, judges often feel they should be giving priority to more pressing matters like poverty and corruption. Almost always, conservation issues are viewed as antidevelopment. Convincing them a conservation matter requires judicial intervention at all is a big part of my work, and once a case is admitted that’s half the battle won.” Then comes the matter of taking on often-governmental agencies or very large and powerful corpora tions wielding formi dable manpower, cash and clout and who often don’t mind play ing dirty. The braketampering incident described above sits among many exam ples of underhand tactics Chengappa has had to deal with. Others include manipulative phone calls, her father’s old lawyer friends being deliberately employed as opposing counsel in an attempt to compromise her, and even a job offer with a government agency that would have conflicted her out of representing conservation groups.
“A lot of people still think that people involved in conservation are wild and crazy”
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“Almost always, conservation issues are viewed as antidevelopment. Convincing them a conservation matter requires judicial intervention at all is a big part of my work”
YOU CAN HELP TOO To find out more about the conservation of tigers and other wildcats in southern India and around the world, visit www.panthera.org
Maharashtra
Goa
Karnataka
Bangalore
Bandipur Tiger Reserve
Kerala
Tamir Nadu
Perhaps most nastily of all, one element of the ‘timber mafia’ had been trying to log illegally, in conjunction with putting a high-tension power line through a protected area. Chengappa had been helping to thwart those efforts in the courts. The company knew she was about to be married, and sent the bulldozers and chainsaws into the forest the day after her wedding, presuming the elaborate requirements of an Indian marriage would be keeping her busy for a while. The next day, her groom was driving her not away on a honeymoon but back to the court and into the thick of the action. What the opposition doesn’t realise is that they are only fanning the flames: “When things like that happen, you know you’re on the right track,” says Chengappa. For now, despite exponential global rises in environmental awareness, the life of a conser vation lawyer in southern India isn’t getting any easier. The precedent-setting victories (see box, p44) for which Chengappa and those behind her have worked so hard are smoothing the legal path for future progress in this common-law country, but finding lawyers willing to make the social and financial sacrifice necessary is almost as hard as finding a tiger out there in the precariously balanced forests. “What we desperately need,” says Chengappa, “is for more young lawyers to get involved in environmental litigation here.” NZL
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PROFILE / OUTSIDE THE OFFICE
Putting a stop to
trafficking Ralph Simpson speaks to NZ Lawyer about tackling the fastest-growing organised criminal activity in the world
Ralph Simpson Bell Gully
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It’s an unlikely next move for one of New Zealand’s best litigators, but for Bell Gully partner Ralph Simpson the decision was an easy one. After 24 years with the firm, Simpson will step down at the end of this year and relocate to Thailand to combat sex trafficking. Within the profession, Simpson is known for his work in commercial litigation, including company, securities, telecommunications and tax litigation. He lists the contested court-approved arrangement to deconstruct Fletcher Challenge, which involved five High Court and two Court of Appeal hearings, as one of the many highlights of his 30-year legal career. “Members of the various professions in New Zealand enjoy a privileged life. If you’re a senior barrister or a partner in a major commercial law firm the privileges are extraordinary. The work is stimulating, you enjoy the prestige that often comes with that work, and you can generate significant wealth throughout your career. From my perspective, with privilege comes responsibility,” he says. Outside the office, he and his wife Joy spent five years mentoring young adults, ranging from students just finishing high school to people in their late twenties. When they finished mentoring in 2007, Simpson started thinking about his next volunteer role, and asked himself the question, “What am I going to do when I cease practising as a lawyer?”
Researching his options, he began reading about human trafficking. “This is the new face of evil in our world, and the more I looked at it the more I became convinced that it will be necessary for ordinary people to become involved in combating it,” he says. To Simpson, the need is obvious. “Human trafficking is the fastest-growing organised criminal activity in the world and the second-largest activity after drug trafficking,” he explains. “Two to 2.5 million people are trafficked every year, and three quarters of those go into sex slavery. A significant portion of them are children,” he says. “The girls and young boys that are trafficked into brothels are forced to service 10–20 clients a day. I found this a difficult statistic to accept.” “It’s an unbelievably miserable life from the time that they’re trafficked, during which time they are treated as mere commodities by both sex customers and their masters. Many will experience violence,” Simpson says. “It’s the ultimate nightmare for a child and there is little hope of escape. The statistics suggest that between half of 1% and 2% ever get rescued and have any form of justice.” After some research, Simpson told his wife about his interest in moving to Southeast Asia, and the couple began planning. “At that stage I thought it was five years away, but it’s taken a little bit longer – nearly eight years.
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During this time my wife acquired a counselling degree and gained experience providing counselling services in schools around Auckland, so that she too can contribute to assisting victims reintegrate into society following their rescue.” During that time, Simpson met the chief executive of New Zealand charity Nvader, and joined its board. “Nvader’s target is to reduce human trafficking by 10%. This includes rescuing victims from brothels, arresting and prosecuting brothel owners, and breaking down the trafficking networks,” he says. The charity runs an investigation team that gathers evidence. Once sufficient evidence has been gathered, Nvader works with local law enforcement to effect a raid, rescue the girls and arrest and prosecute the perpetrators. Simpson will be heading up Nvader’s Thailand office and hopes to expand the number of teams investigating sex trafficking in the region. He also plans to focus on preventing people from being trafficked by empowering the local community. He predicts that language and cultural differences will be a challenge in his early days in Thailand, as will building relationships with police, the government, NGOs and social workers. “It’s quite a steep learning curve for me. I won’t be practising as a lawyer. I will be building and managing the team in Thailand, formulating and implementing strategies, and establishing relation ships with potential partners and Thai authorities,” Simpson says. While he won’t be working in a legal capacity, he believes the leadership and team-building skills he gained during his time at Bell Gully will greatly assist him in his new role. Simpson says he’s been overwhelmed by the support he’s received from his colleagues and from the firm for his Thailand move. Bell Gully recently hosted a charity dinner for Nvader, which was attended by 240 of Simpson’s colleagues and clients, and lawyers from other firms, and raised $150,000. “The feedback I have received has been unanimously supportive, and I have felt encouraged and affirmed by the financial support,” he says. Despite the scale of the task ahead, Simpson seems undaunted by the challenge. “I want to achieve something significant with the latter part of my working life. This draws me to endeavours to make the world a better place. By a better place I am not naively referring to some form of utopia. I don’t believe we will ever stop human trafficking, but we can make a serious difference in combating it.” NZL
SEX TRAFFICKING WORLDWIDE
2M
Women and children trafficked into the commercial sex industry each year
80% of trafficking victims are female
50% of trafficking victims are children
US$32b
n
Criminal networks’ annual earnings from human trafficking
US$250
4,000
Approximate number of convictions for trafficking each year
<0.5% ,000
Average annual profits from one trafficked woman or child
The number of trafficking victims who agree to testify against their traffickers
Source: NVader
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BUSINESS STRATEGY / LEADERSHIP
The diplomatic leader:
How to agree to disagree Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a myth that disagreements are negative and are to be avoided at all costs. However, as business consultant Alexandra Tselios explains, if you avoid them entirely, you may never achieve truly effective business outcomes 48 | SEPTEMBER 2014
One of the biggest misconceptions that is detrimental to our society, in my opinion, is that a disagreement has a negative connotation. Too often, I hear people describing a discussion they had at work that was regarded as a disagreement, and they are upset and disillusioned by the event. Quite simply, a healthy team in a company moving forward is going to face disagreements. It is the only way conversations will be effective, outcomes can be achieved and targets can be met.
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There is a fine art to disagreeing with employees without seeming combative or stubborn, and all too often managers get caught up in the fact that ‘they know the business better’ or ‘they’ve been in the business longer’
Beware a leader who avoids conflict, or any sort of disagreement, because the most effective leaders are the ones who are able to agree to disagree diplomatically. Leadership communication skills 101 suggests that a productive conversation has the ability to compare perspectives and make a decision. But what happens if a conversation becomes emotional, or worse, an all-out argument? The key is to have the ability to separate yourself and look at the situation from a holistic point of view. How has this conversation derailed? What are all participants trying to achieve? Part of leading effectively is to have the ability to identify strengths in others that you lack, and navigate social nuances. One particular type of person that senior managers often surround themselves with is the ‘Yes Man’. This person consistently pats their manager on the back, never questions any decisions, and generally flees when their CEO faces a huge legal dispute or failure. While these Yes Men can be fantastic motivators when the chips are down, their inability to provide an alternate opinion is ultimately their downfall. It’s crucial to feel a sense of team unity and have a defined goal, but it’s equally important for a manager to encourage
diplomatic disagreements with effective outcomes, something that’s not possible with a Yes Man. A business is built on its employees, and every staff member is selected for their specialist skill set and experience. A diplomatic leader is one that considers a variety of different perspectives and analyses this information when making their final decision. Understanding how the delivery of information can impact on those around you is crucial to ensuring that a disagreement doesn’t result in a negative blow to productivity. Who wants to deal with a situation where the guy from accounts refuses to speak to the guy from sales, over a conflict that wasn’t even personal? Sometimes you cannot influence office politics, and people will not always get along, but how that affects a discussion is up to the diplomatic leader. The crux of disagreeing effectively is ensuring that all participants in a discussion feel as though they have been understood and validated, even if their suggestions aren’t adopted in the resolution.
THE ART OF DISAGREEING There is a fine art to disagreeing with employees without seeming combative or stubborn, and all too often managers get caught up in the fact that ‘they know the business better’ or ‘they’ve been in the business longer’. With differing opinions, there must come detachment. Don’t make it about being right or wrong, but have the overall goal of finding the best outcome for the business. Managers should make quality decisions based on data and facts, and this can only be done if they are able to disagree diplomatically when required. Because every staff member comes with their own filter for how they view and behave in a conflict, a manager needs to have a tight rein on their own personal reaction to disagreements. Before engaging in any disagreement, whether it’s between colleagues, companies or the competition, it
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BUSINESS STRATEGY / LEADERSHIP
THE 6 STYLES OF LEADERSHIP Directive – A coercive style that demands compliance and can contaminate everyone’s mood and drive talent away. To be used sparingly – in a crisis or to kick-start an urgent turnaround. Visionary – Inspires and is able to explain how and why people’s efforts contribute to the ‘vision’. Moves people towards shared outcomes through empathy and clarity. Affiliative – Creates harmony that boosts morale and solves conflict, a useful style for healing rifts in a team or for motivating them during stressful times. Participative – Superb listener, team worker, collaborator and influencer. Values people’s input and gets commitment through participation. Pace-setting – Strong drive to achieve through their own efforts; has high personal standards and initiative. Can be impatient and prone to micromanaging and leading only through example. Coaching – Listens and helps people identify their own strengths and weaknesses. Encourages, delegates and improves performance by building their people’s long-term capabilities. Source: Hays Group
Alexandra Tselios is a business consultant and publisher of The Big Smoke. She has a diverse background in corporate, public and creative fields and is an expert business consultant. Visit www. thebigsmoke.com.au.
is essential to leave ego at the door and identify why a disagreement is occurring. Sometimes it is simply a clash of personalities, but more often than not it’s because someone can see something that you can’t. Consider the fact that this colleague or client may be providing you with the oppor tunity to gain a fresh perspective that you didn’t have the latitude to scope. This is why a top-tier manager should be able to value the differences of those around them, rather than employ a strict autocratic leadership model.
NEGOTIATE AND COMPROMISE Negotiation skills and willingness to compromise are key characteristics of a diplomatic leader, and the best managers are able to negotiate in such a way that they receive the outcome they desire without the other parties realising they have 50 | SEPTEMBER 2014
compromised on their original position. Leadership is about surrounding yourself with a group of advisers, and if you build a reputation of being unmovable, you can quickly find yourself alone. Ultimately, by creating a company culture that is conducive to discussion and feedback, you are facilitating a change around the myth that disagreements are negative. The right way to disagree with others is only possible after you have listened to all perspectives while considering the impact on whatever decision is finally made. Whether you agree or not isn’t the point; the point is what resolution is best for the company, the team and clients. Until you respect the opinions of others, they are unlikely to respect yours, but once a culture of discussion and appreciation is fostered, it will be far easier to make a decision that will be adhered to by even your strongest opponents. This is why it is important to have a healthy balance of personality types on your team who are capable of both encouraging and challenging. I often hear the meekest of voices challenge me in a meeting, but once they realise it is absolutely welcomed, they gain confidence and a discussion can truly start to form. This is not the time to assert your leadership position or flaunt your dominance; this is the time to show your employees that you value their strengths and want them to contribute fully. One of the strongest qualities of a good leader is their ability to say no to something without causing tension or resulting in loss of employee morale. Use each disagreement as an opportunity for greater understanding. If a staff member offers a suggestion that isn’t in line with company procedure or standards, take the time to brainstorm together the reasons it won’t work, and what an alternative could be, instead of belittling or disregarding the individual. The core of a diplomatic leader comes down to respecting and valuing the strengths of those around them. This has nothing to do with personality differences or clashes, and everything to do with the ability to listen, respond and validate. If it is second nature to avoid conflict, you simply need to get over it, because, quite frankly, conflict can be a productive and important part of analysing data and reaching decisions. Diplomatic leaders have to be comfortable that they are responsible for the decisions that drive the company to success, as well as for the decisions that don’t work as well as planned; they need to be at ease with their own leadership abilities, and clear on the gaps that require personal investment. NZL
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7 steps to wiping out burnout Do you wear your tiredness and busyness as a badge of honour? Are you too flat out to take time out for yourself? Do you feel like you’re on a spinning hamster wheel which never stops? Do you keep saying you will take time off ‘later’? Or when things quieten down (which they never do)? If this sounds like you, and you’re ready to make a change, read on to find out what Dr Adam Fraser says you can do
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BUSINESS STRATEGY / BURNOUT
The rock star anthem is “It’s better to burn out than fade away”. Sounds extreme but sadly it seems that the average corporate employee is trying to emulate this. Ask people how they are and you will generally get one of two answers: “busy” or “tired”. The pace of life is outrageous. Most people I talk to say they feel like they’re handcuffed to a roller coaster that is stuck on repeat. I was coaching a CEO recently and when I asked her how she would describe her life, she said, “I feel like the hamster is dead but the wheel is still spinning!” We are jamming more and more into our alreadycrammed lives. One executive confessed to me that she gets her eight-year-old to read her four-year-old a story while she sits on the bed and answers emails on her phone. She has outsourced story time. The fallout of all this haste is that many people have lost the ability to slow down and recharge, and as a result the burnout rate in business is rapidly climbing. So why is it such an epidemic? There are two big problems in how we handle burnout.
PROBLEM 1: PUTTING IT OFF Many times in my conversations with people who are burnt out, I ask, “What are you going to do about that?” Their reply is: “Well, I have a holiday in three months; I will keep pushing until then and then I will relax!” You can’t put off addressing burnout.
PROBLEM 2: WAITING FOR THINGS TO SLOW DOWN I have lost count of the number of times I have heard the phrase ‘‘I will look after myself/relax when things quieten down”. With margins being constantly squeezed and the rise of leaner organisations, that ship has well and truly sailed. Don’t expect workloads to lessen; it’s simply not in our business DNA.
One executive confessed to me that she gets her eight-year-old to read her four-year-old a story while she sits on the bed and answers emails on her phone. She has outsourced story time 52 | SEPTEMBER 2014
WHAT TO DO? What is a practical solution? For this we have to turn to the world of elite sport. When I worked with Olympic athletes, burnout was a frequent and very real challenge. Often you hear in the media that athletes get sick just before or during the Olympics. Why? Because they are always on the verge of overtraining or undertraining. If you overtrain an athlete you simply push them too hard for too long, and their immune system starts to decline, they get sick and their performance plummets. Obviously this is a significant problem and one we put a lot of resources into solving. What didn’t work was working an athlete until they showed signs of burnout and then giving them long periods off to recover. In contrast, the solution existed in giving them small, regular, consistent bursts of recovery. It was a shift in mindset; instead of ‘how do we help them recover when they are feeling burnt out’, we looked at how they recovered each day, each week and each month. Recovery became something they did perpetually rather than something they resorted to when exhausted. Techniques such as meditation, relaxation and improved quality of sleep were daily rituals that stopped burnout in its tracks.
HOW WE APPLY THIS TO THE BUSINESS WORLD When I transitioned into working with corporations I found that people talked about trying to address burnout; however, they wore exhaustion as a badge of honour. People would literally compete with each other to be the hardest worker, the most tired, and the one closest to complete physical and mental breakdown. Over the last 10 years I have run countless programs with corporate executives to prevent burnout. Here are the seven critical components that kept people burnout-free:
1
Decide whether you are serious about avoiding burnout
Notice if you are using burnout as a status symbol. Does exhaustion define you as a person, and unless you are stressed and exhausted do you feel guilty and think that you are a slacker not pulling your weight?
2
Develop the capacity to say ‘no’
Your organisation and leaders will always try to get more and more out of you. Don’t
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When trying to prevent burnout in Olympic athletes, what didn’t work was working an athlete until they showed signs of burnout and then giving them long periods off to recover. In contrast, the solution existed in giving them small, regular, consistent bursts of recovery
your mind/body each day. Oh, watching TV doesn’t count.
4
Each week do something that gives you a shot of vitality
This is taking the daily relaxation principle and turning it up to 11. We all have things in our life that fuel our soul, whether it is socialising with friends, going out for breakfast, walking on the beach, doing yoga or being out in nature. It is something that not only relaxes you but also juices you.
5
Each month have a day with no responsibilities
expect them to manage your burnout; it sounds cynical but it’s just the way the world works. You have to be responsible for this. Develop the capacity to have some boundaries and ways to say no.
Our lives are so scheduled that there is always something to do. Psychologists report that children are experiencing anxiety from trying to keep up with a vast array of extracurricular activities. When was the last time you had a day when you woke up with nothing to do and no responsibilities? Days like this are restorative and freeing. Each month, schedule a day that is responsibility-free. Our research showed that a day like this is ideally spent by yourself. Busy couples with kids got around this by taking turns with their partner and having the other person look after the kids.
3
6
Do something that relaxes you each day
Just like shutting down your computer, your brain needs the capacity to turn off and recover. Not only does this let the mind and body recover, but it also builds our capability to put the brakes on when we need to. Often people reflect on their holidays by saying, “It took me a week to unwind; I had a couple of good days and then started to worry about coming back to work”. We have lost the ability to go slow, and in some instances going slow seems to be punishment. The actor Will Ferrell put it best: “Before you marry a person you should first make them use a computer with slow internet to find out who they really are!” Doing something that relaxes you each day, even if it’s just for five or 10 minutes, builds up that muscle. Meditation, listening to a relaxation tape, yoga, and deep breathing while stretching before bed are all great ways to recharge
Every quarter take a long weekend
Four times a year take a day off either side of the weekend and have a mini break, whether you go somewhere or simply stay at home. These regular mini holidays are great sanity breaks.
7
Have an off season
All sports people factor in an off season when they give their body and mind a complete break. No one can keep going all year. Australians have amassed a concerning amount of holiday leave. Don’t become one of those people who never take a holiday; aim to wipe out your annual leave each year. There you go: a seven-step process burnout from your life. I have used with many executives and I have no matter their external stress, it dramatically reduce their chances Go forth and recover. NZL
to eradicate this process found that, helps them of burnout.
Dr Adam Fraser is a human performance researcher and consultant who studies how organisations adopt a high-performance culture to thrive in this challenging and evolving business landscape. Phone +61 2 9818 5199 or visit www.dradamfraser.com
SEPTEMBER 2014 | 53
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INSIGHT
THE RULE OF LAW IN NEW ZEALAND
This international research shows New Zealand is a top performer when it comes to the rule of law
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6th in the world for rule of law
in East Asia and Pacific region for rule of law 7th in the world for fundamental rights
3rd in the world for absence of corruption 4th in the world for constraints on government powers 5th in the world for regulatory enforcement
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9th in the world for civil justice 56 | SEPTEMBER 2014
Source: Rule of Law Index 2014 (World Justice Project)
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