New year senior promotions and appointments

New year senior promotions and appointments

7 February 2017

MinterEllisonRuddWatts, a top tier New Zealand law firm, has welcomed the new year with numerous promotions and appointments at Partner and Senior Associate levels.

Newly appointed Chair, Lloyd Kavanagh, says the appointments will strengthen the firm’s market leading position and highlight its talent and capability.

"We’re celebrating the new year with a number of promotions, highlighting our confidence in our people and our position within the New Zealand market for commercial legal advice," says Lloyd Kavanagh.

"We have built a culture of excellence and our people have responded by delivering great outcomes for our clients. The new year promotions are one way we recognise talent and those living the values of the firm.

"Being the best firm to work with and in means having the best people. We’re delighted to celebrate the level of skill and experience our great people have and recognise their potential for future growth."

The already strong partnership will be further bolstered with the promotion of Briony Davies and lateral hire Tom Maasland who joins from another top tier legal firm.

Having held the position of Special Counsel, Briony has already made a strong contribution to the firm’s Dispute Resolution practice in Wellington.

Joining the firm in 2015, Briony has achieved on a number of levels including strengthening the firm’s public law, economic regulation and cyber law practices by running several complex judicial review proceedings and advising on a wide range of challenging public law issues for both Government and private sector clients.

"Briony is described by her clients as commercially-minded, savvy, strategic and astute - the exact traits we need to portray as we continue our work to be the best firm to work with, and in," says Mike Schubert, the firm’s CEO.

Briony is delighted with her promotion to Partner saying: "When I joined the Wellington team, I was impressed with the diversity of work and the excellent opportunities to grow the market leading Dispute Resolution practice. I am thrilled to join the partnership and look forward to contributing to its ongoing success."

Tom Maasland will join the partnership in February as a member of the Auckland Corporate team. He’s an experienced technology and general commercial lawyer who advises on business-critical technology contracts and emerging technologies such as blockchain and smart contracts, predominantly in the energy, retail, telecommunications and FinTech sectors.

Ranked by Chambers and Partners as a leading lawyer, Tom will further strengthen our TMT team.

"Tom is not only an outstanding lawyer and leader in the technology field, but he’s also a great person. He exhibits all the values we like in our partnership - such as teamwork, collegiality and responsiveness," says Mike Schubert.

Upon his election to the partnership, Tom said: "I’m excited to be joining MinterEllisonRuddWatts. It’s a leading firm that is experiencing excellent growth and has an impressive strategy for the future. The team culture is exceptional and I am very much looking forward to being part of the high performing Corporate team."

Briony and Tom join Environment Partner Bianca Tree in a raft of recent partnership elections.

The firm is also proud to announce 12 new Senior Associates, having promoted seven lawyers to the role in recognition of their talent, and made an additional five lateral hires.

Congratulations to Lauren Archer, Jo Carrick, Hugo Chisholm, Riaia Donald, Igor Drinkovic, John Morrison and David Shewan, and welcome to Alissa Cantrell, June Hardacre, Jane Standage, Hannah Andrews and Sonya Forbes.

Internal promotions took effect on 1 January and external appointments will start by 1 February.

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