2025 ILANZ Award Winners

This year's ILANZ awards attracted yet another high standard quality of nominations from across the country! The finalists were selected based on their exceptional legal skills, leadership abilities, and commitment to their organisations and communities.

Our judges want to emphasise that each nominee should be proud of their achievements, regardless of the final outcome. Your hard work, dedication, and commitment to excellence have not gone unnoticed.

Individual award finalists and winners

Public Sector In-house Lawyer of the Year:

• Andrew Riseley - Commerce Commission
• Greg Brogden - Health New Zealand
• Joseph Bergin - Tāmaki Regeneration Company
• Neena Ullal - High Performance Sport NZ (HPSNZ) 
• Philippa Miller-Ibos - New Zealand Police
• Rose Mein - Maritime New Zealand
  
  

Winner: Rose Mein - Maritime New Zealand
Rose has worked at Maritime New Zealand for five years and commenced her time at MNZ as an Intermediate Solicitor, quickly progressing to Senior Solicitor, and became Manager of the Public, International and Commercial Law Team in 2022. Rose's speedy progression is a testament to her capabilities as both a lawyer and people leader, demonstrated by her ability to foster successful relationships with direct reports, clients and senior leadership. 
 
The past year has been an unusually busy one in terms of maritime incident response. Within the space of four months, there were three incidents that saw MNZ's maritime incident response team stood up. In each case, Rose was quickly brought in as the dedicated lawyer for the response team, while drawing on support from other members of the legal team.  
 
Rose supports her team's skill development by fostering strong engagement with other teams and providing training opportunities, ensuring they deliver competent legal advice. She tailors’ growth to each lawyer's interests, helping them become subject matter experts while balancing the team's workload.

Highly Commended: Greg Brogden - Health New Zealand

Greg has been an inspiring leader for Health New Zealand's legal team in the South Island and particularly in Canterbury and West Coast districts for over 20 years. 
 
He has championed a team of lawyers and legal executive colleagues through challenging experiences like organisational and executive team change, the hospital emergency response and rebuild after the Christchurch earthquakes, the mosque shootings and complex coronial work.  
 
His nominator noted that Greg has truly "seen it all" within the hospital and health sector context. He is the Health NZ legal team's "go to" person for any query and can always help solve your problem with a quick phone call and a gentle dose of self-deprecating humour. The judges noted that he is clearly an inspiring supportive leader and highly respected amongst the entire organisation.

MinterEllisonRuddWatts Private Sector In-house Lawyer of the Year:

• Harriet Blackburn - Vector Limited
• Jason Hawthorne - Serko
• Kirsten Clayton - Contact Energy
  
  

Winner: Kirsten Clayton - Contact Energy
It has been an extraordinary year for Kirsten by any measure. She was a key part of the team leading the Manawa takeover - one of the most significant energy sector deals in the last decade, and one of New Zealand’s largest corporate transactions of 2024 and of key strategic importance for Contact. On top of this, Kirsten has also helped the company navigate the ups and downs of many other opportunities and challenges in the same period. 
 
Kirsten is implicitly trusted by the Board of Directors and has strong relationships right across the management team. Her commitment to best practice corporate governance and continuous improvement adds enormous value for the company.

MAS New In-house Lawyer of the Year:

• Romina Seylani - Douglas Pharmaceuticals Limited
• Suzanne Trounson - Maritime New Zealand
  
  

Winner: Suzanne Trounson - Maritime New Zealand
Since joining in 2023, Suzanne has achieved outstanding results in her roles in both the Litigation and Operations team and the Public, International, and Commercial team. Her expertise in navigating the court system, particularly in regulatory matters, has been critical to her success.   
 
Complementing her BAU role, Suzanne is a part of MNZ’s Incident Response Team contributing to the legal support in several high-profile incidents in 2024: the grounding of the Aratere, the grounding of the Manahau off Westport, and the sinking of the HMNZS Manawanui.  
 
Beyond her legal accomplishments, Suzanne actively contributes to MNZ’s strategic objectives. She is a committee member of the Maritime Women's Network, and Health and Safety Representative, and an advocate of Te Rōpū, MNZ’s Māori staff engagement network. The judges noted that Suzanne’s role in the incidents from the last year highlights her ability to work effectively under pressure and demonstrates leadership potential.

Sole In-house Lawyer of the Year:

Winner: Matt McGrath - Hawke's Bay Regional Council
Since joining Hawkes Bay Regional Council in July 2023 as the first in-house Legal Counsel  , Matt McGrath’s work has been dominated by the aftermath of Cyclone Gabrielle. 

Team award finalists:

Anthony Harper Small In-house Team of the Year

• High Performance Sport New Zealand (HPSNZ) Legal Team
• KPMG 
• Stuff Group Legal Team
• Zespri Group Limited Legal & Intangible Assets Team
  
  

Winner: High Performance Sport New Zealand (HPSNZ) Legal Team
The legal team at High Performance Sport New Zealand may be small, but they exert influence and impact across the whole organisation.  This dynamic duo made up of Neena Ullal - General Counsel and Kelly McAuslan - Senior Legal Counsel are passionate about the sector, care for the people within it, and are a highly regarded and widely trusted sounding board. 

Chapman Tripp Private Sector In-house Team of the Year

• AIA New Zealand Legal & Regulatory
• Chorus Legal Team
• Fisher Funds Legal Team
• New Zealand Rugby Legal Team
  
  

Winner: New Zealand Rugby Legal Team
The New Zealand Rugby Legal Team’s expertise is broad, dealing with a range of subject matters including governance, tournament management, partnerships, privacy, employment, provincial union and community rugby, policy, anti-corruption, medical, ACC, regulation and compliance and many more.  In the last year they have had to navigate a myriad of challenges, particularly concerning the governance of our national game which has been widely reported in the media – achieving successful outcomes whilst under the microscope.

Just like a well drilled forward pack, the New Zealand Rugby legal team binds together and drives forward. The team’s excellent references, including their video – which the judges highly rated, and the information they supplied in their nomination was noted as being ‘outstanding’ and was attest to the team’s achievements. 

Greenwood Roche Public Sector In-house Team of the Year

• Ngā Ratonga Ture | Legal Services, Auckland Council
• Health New Zealand Legal Team
• Maritime NZ Legal Services Team
  
  

Winner: Maritime NZ Legal Services Team
The Maritime New Zealand in-house legal team is a highly functioning and collaborative unit, who manages to achieve significant streamlining of work allocation and collaboration despite being spread across the length and breadth of New Zealand.  
 
The team work with difficult and traumatic cases involving victims but also feel the pressure of making hard calls that can have high reputational and personal impacts on companies and individuals. The team navigates this with skill, courage, professionalism and excellence. The judges noted that this was an outstanding nomination and the team demonstrated highly effective crisis management.

Special award finalists

Simpson Grierson People & Culture Excellence Award

• New Zealand Rugby Legal Team
• Philippa Miller-Ibos - New Zealand Police
• 2degrees Legal Team
  
  

Winner: 2degrees Legal Team
The 2degrees Legal Team holds on tight to the principle “a vacancy is a gift, spend it wisely” - waiting patiently for the right person to bring into their team, as culture is everything.  It is well documented that working as an in-house counsel is challenging, dynamic and fast-paced, with often unpredictable days where your work priorities at midday are quite different from what you expected at 9am. To counter these stressors, the 2degrees Legal Team works hard to foster a close-knit team where individuals can share their highs and lows in a supportive environment. 

Artemis In-house Innovation Award

• KPMG
• Rocket Lab Legal Team (NZ)
• Serko
  
  

Winner: KPMG
KPMG’s Legal team does law differently – they combine bold innovation with a steadfast commitment to continuous improvement. The team’s thoughtful design and practical implementation of an operationalised, end-to-end AI Governance Framework that empowers KPMG to use and deploy AI responsibly and ethically is one of many examples in their long track record of delivering legal services with a modern, business-focused approach, fuelled by creativity and innovative thinking. Their ability to simplify the complex and proactively address challenges by removing friction has enabled KPMG to respond to clients’ needs faster and maintain a competitive edge in a highly regulated industry. 
 
The judges were impressed with the submission with one of them noting that this submission was unlike any they’d seen before – it knocked communication of innovation out of the park and the team should not only be proud of their achievements in the innovation space, but also with the incredible submission itself.

 

ComplyWith Community Contribution Award

• Philippa Miller-Ibos - New Zealand Police
• Rocket Lab Legal Team (NZ)
  
  

Winner: Philippa Miller-Ibos - New Zealand Police
Philippa has been described as an incredibly hard worker who always makes herself available to assist others, be it someone from her team or any other person in the organisation.  She is someone who genuinely cares about what she does and how she can help others. Alongside her very busy high-pressured role, Philippa: