Process
Parameters:
- The entire New Zealand legal services market
- Work completed and services provided between 1st April 2021 and 31st March 2022
- Firms, lawyers, in-house departments, banks and accountancy firms based in or working predominantly in New Zealand
- For all deal categories the majority of the legal work was NZ based
Stage One – Nominations
The legal industry is invited to nominate and provide insight into the most outstanding individuals, firms or organisations of 2021. All nominations must be made via the online nomination portal on the New Zealand Law Awards website. Click on one of the 'nomination buttons' here to start your submission.
To complete a nomination, you’ll be required to:
1. Provide a nomination submission of no more than 650 words following the criteria listed here.
The information you include will be provided to a panel of judges who will vote for the eventual winner in each category. Please note that this year all nominations will go straight to the judging panel and you won’t be asked for additional information in due course.
Examples of suitable information to include are:
- Awards, accolades or specific third-party commendations relevant to the award category
- A general overview of your achievements within the judging period (1st April 2021-31st March 2022)
- Brief details of any other special initiatives undertaken during the judging period
- Qualitative and quantitative information on all measurable success
2. Provide a further summary for publication (max. 100 words) in either bullet point or paragraph format. The summary may be published on the event website and/or in the official winners edition of the NZ Lawyer e-magazine so please do not include any confidential information.
3. Provide your headshot (for individual nominations) or your company logo (for firms/team nominations)
4. Provide supporting documentation and a media link (this can be a link to a website, a video, a Dropbox folder, etc.). This step is not mandatory
Stage Two – Research
The NZ Law Awards team will also conduct research and draw on industry knowledge and information gained through sister publication NZ Lawyer to supplement and support nominations received and to identify the outstanding firms, teams, individual and deals in each cateogory that will receive an Excellence Award.
Stage Three – Judging
The NZ Law Awards team will provide full details of each Excellence Awardee to an independent panel of judges. The panel will assess and score each nomination according to the criteria listed here.
Stage Four – Winners
Using a simple points system to aggregate judges’ scores, the Excellence Awardee with the highest score in each category will be selected as the Winner. Excellence awardees will be announced on NZ Lawyer online channels on 18 August. Overall winners will be announced at the NZ Law Awards on 10 November at The Cordis Auckland, followed by an exclusive comprehensive commemorative guide.