The New Lawyer Project

The New Lawyer project was an extended conversation with the New Zealand legal industry about the experience of being a law student and lawyer, and the culture we might make together. It comprises a book, The New Lawyer: Essays on law, life and humanity (LexisNexis, 2021) and The New Lawyer Podcast. (See below to find out more.)

I created the project as a podcast and writing series in 2016. With the help of LexisNexis, the College of Law, the Canterbury-Westland branch of NZLS, guests from all over the legal industry, from law students through to Supreme Court Justices, and even the Solicitor General, the project became a resource for all as they sought company and navigated careers and culture change in the industry.

As I said back in 2016: “We like to have fun while figuring out complex structural inequities. It’s really the only way.”

The project closed in 2023 with the final episode of its podcast, but the podcast and the book will continue to be resources for every next class of new lawyers.

Though I now write songs and shows instead of legal submissions, I retain my enormous affection for, and faith in, the new lawyers of Aotearoa.