William Culas knew it wouldn’t be easy to get a job when he migrated to New Zealand from Malaysia in February 2012. However with 15 years’ general experience as well as specialising in negligence motor insurance claims and an LLB (Hons) from London University the difficulty in finding work was ... More about One migrant lawyer’s quest for work.
There’s an elephant in the room when workplace ethnic diversity is discussed. It begins with “R” and makes everyone a little uncomfortable. Thankfully that word is uncooperative and unnecessary. And that’s according to Office of Ethnic Affairs director Mervin Singham. “For too long political correctness and sensitivity impedes rational debate ... More about Changing stereotypes – the future lawyer.
It is not easy to realise if you have an unconscious bias whether ethnic or gender bias which could be jeopardising your business success. An diverse workforce is important in discovering new national and international markets questioning systems and creating innovation according to Mervin Singham director the Office of Ethnic ... More about Check your bias – Ethnicity of law graduates.
This is the second year that the New Zealand Law Society and Momentum have combined to carry out a survey of legal salaries. The objective is to secure indicative information on New Zealand legal salary levels which can be freely shared with members of the legal profession. The survey was ... More about New Zealand Law Society/Momentum Legal Salary Survey 2012.
With the rise of internet-based CV services and templates most people have access to tools that enable the creation of the ‘perfect’ CV. As a consequence CVs are becoming much more generic making it harder to tell candidates apart. So how up-to-date and comprehensive are your social media profiles? If ... More about CVs and social media.
The New Zealand Law Society Legal Executive Diploma 2012 syllabus has now been confirmed for each of the six full-year papers making up the Diploma course and enrolments in these papers are being accepted. The syllabus for each subject in the qualification is set by the Law Society and reviewed ... More about Legal Executive Diploma training in 2012.
The December 2011 issue of the New Zealand Institute of Legal Executives (NZILE) magazine Envoy contains a summary of information obtained from the annual online survey on pay and conditions. The survey was responded to by 678 NZILE members giving a 72% response rate. Key information reported by Envoy is ... More about Legal Executive Remuneration Information.
The survey was conducted online in September and October 2011 with all New Zealand lawyers holding a current practising certificate invited to participate. Over 1 100 responses were received. This represents almost 10% of the profession and is a reasonable level of participation statistically. The survey only relates to lawyers ... More about New Zealand Law Society/Momentum Legal Salary Survey 2011 Final Report.
The survey was conducted online in September and October 2011. All New Zealand lawyers who held a current practising certificate were invited to participate. Over 1 100 responses were received which was about 10% of the profession and is regarded as a reasonable level of participation statistically. Most respondents were ... More about New Zealand Law Society/Momentum Legal Salary Survey 2011: Key Findings.
As the number of people leaving the workforce begins to outnumber those entering employers need to investigate ways to cater and retain aging staff. The Department of Labour predicts that in less than a decade 25% of employees will be over the age of 55. According to current statistics from ... More about Retaining older staff.
Women in New Zealand get paid on average 10.6% less than men and ironically the gender pay gap is larger in the public sector. The difference increases to 26.09% in the Crown Law Office according to a report by Human Rights Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner Dr Judy McGregor. Fortunately there ... More about Money – at the heart of the gender equality debate.
Rather than viewing the Kiwi OE as a black hole absorbing mid-level staff some firms have changed tactic and are now utilising it as an opportunity to build international networks and secure long-term loyalty from top employees. Minter Ellison Rudd Watts (Minters) had a pretty well established programme of encouraging ... More about Converting OE into a positive factor.
The following information has been compiled by recruitment company Momentum’s National Legal Recruitment team over 2010/2011 in the course of interviewing and placing job applicants. Momentum recruits legal staff for both private practice and in-house teams in both the public and private sectors throughout all regions of New Zealand and ... More about Momentum Indicative Legal Profession Salary Ranges: In-house.
The following information has been compiled by recruitment company Momentum’s National Legal Recruitment team over 2010/2011 in the course of interviewing and placing job applicants. Momentum recruits legal staff for both private practice and in-house teams in both the public and private sectors throughout all regions of New Zealand and ... More about Momentum Indicative Legal Profession Salary Ranges: Private Practice.
Delegation should be easy shouldn’t it? You should be able to pass a job over to someone else with the expectation that they will do it right and do it on time. But so often partners complain about the results of delegation the re-work required to bring it up to ... More about When Delegation goes wrong - and how to get it right.
The following information was gathered from a survey of 20 Auckland law firms conducted by Markhams Auckland in October 2010. The survey has been conducted annually since 2006. Participants in the 2010 survey ranged from sole practitioners to a firm with 17 partners (including non equity partners). The information shows ... More about Auckland Law Firm Salary Data 2010.
Downturn stems young lawyer exodus Traditionally many young lawyers with two to five years experience seek to work overseas but the economic downturn of the last two years has reduced overseas opportunities for young lawyers and more are staying in New Zealand. It can be difficult to get accurate information ... More about Young lawyers and travel plans.
Legal Executives and the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006 The scope of work that can be undertaken by legal executives and the limitations imposed on this by the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006 (LCA) has recently come under scrutiny. NZLS has received advice on what work a legal executive may ... More about Legal executives and LCA work.
Young lawyers sometimes hard to find Finding young lawyers to work in regional or “provincial” practices has become a recruitment challenge and the reason why isn’t easy to pin down. LawTalk recently asked some regional principals and recruiter if lawyers with between two and five years’ experience were becoming a ... More about Recruitment of young lawyers.