ILANZ Committee Member, Kirsty Millard, and the role of ILANZ
I’m Kirsty Millard and by way of my “day” job I am the Chief Legal Advisor/director procurement at the Ministry for the Environment. I am also a committee member of the In-house Lawyers Association of New Zealand (ILANZ). I’ll give you a little bit of insight into what ILANZ is about.
ILANZ’s core function is providing a vehicle to bring in-house lawyers together. It is a section of the Law Society (much like the property and family law sections) and its key mandate is to connect, support and lead in-house lawyers. It principally does this by holding an annual conference, hosting training or speakers, and holding network catch-ups (particularly in the regions). It also makes submissions on matters that affect in-house lawyers.
I am a general committee member on ILANZ and together we oversee how ILANZ can provide the connection and support for inhouse lawyers. The committee is made up of a great bunch of in-house lawyers who are really committed to making a difference to the in-house legal profession. We have recently held elections for our new committee.
Our incoming committee will be made up of ten members in total, ably led by our President (Grant Pritchard) and our in-coming Vice President (Hiramai Rogers). I’m looking forward to working with the in-coming committee on some exciting initiatives we have already started planning for.
I joined the ILANZ Committee to bring both the Government legal network and the Wellington in-house lawyers voice to the committee. I also joined as it is great working with representatives of the inhouse legal community across the country and working in quite different areas of practise. This means we get to hear and work through issues with quite a range of perspectives. We are all focused on how we can make the profession better and address the specific needs of inhouse lawyers.
In-house lawyers make up over 25% of the profession. A lot of those lawyers work for Government or regulatory bodies, usually based in Wellington. So ILANZ is very important for the Wellington legal community to ensure our in-house voices and experience is being reflected in the Law Society and elsewhere, and to shape what training and discussion topics we include in ILANZ supported events. ILANZ runs a number of training opportunities which are specifically targeted to skills and issues facing in-house lawyers, including General Counsel. And of course I would encourage any in-house lawyer to join us at the conference in Ōtautahi (Christchurch) on 5 and 6 October. The theme is Whakapuāwai/Flourish and we have some great topics and speakers lined up, including Ethan Jerome-Leota from Tainui (Waikato) and Dame Sophie Pascoe. You can check out more details here.
Article by Leonie Vines, Wellington Branch Manager.