The inaugural NZ Asian Lawyers Awards were celebrated on Friday 1 November 2024 in the presence of the Attorney-General the Hon Judith Collins KC, Sir Anand Satyanand, Lady Satyanand, other distinguished guests and a capacity crowd of lawyers, friends and family.
The Attorney-General presented the 2024 New Zealand Asian Lawyer of the Year Award to Tina Liu and the 2024 New Zealand Young Asian Lawyer of the Year Award to Robb Bautista. Tina Liu is a commercial partner in the firm of Tompkins Wake in Auckland and Robb Bautista is an associate practising family law in the firm LawHub in Christchurch. Certificates were also presented by representatives of the sponsors of the Awards to the finalists in each category – Michael Ip, Arthur Loo, Gul Qaisrani, Maricel Weischede (Asian Lawyer of the Year), Amarind Eng, Ayesha Goel and Nathan Tse (Young Asian Lawyer of the Year).
After the presentations, the Attorney-General gave a well-received address. She spoke about the challenges of practising law and being a lawyer and urged all of us to maintain high standards and uphold the rule of law.
Sir Anand Satyanand spoke on behalf of the panel of judges comprising himself, Taryn Gudmanz (Vice President New Zealand Law Society), Takeshi Ito (Secretary and Board member, NZ Asian Lawyers) and Danielle Cooper (Board member and Young Lawyers Committee Convenor, NZ Asian Lawyers). He outlined the process the panel took in deciding the Award winners. There were 31 nominations across both Awards. From those nominations, the panel invited nine nominees (the nine finalists) to submit responses to questions and to attend a 20-30 minute online interview.
From that, the panel selected the winners of the Awards. Sir Anand noted that their task was difficult because the quality of the nine finalists was outstanding but after close discussion, the winners emerged clearly and strongly. The judging panel thought that Tina Liu was a succinct and well-expressed professional. She spoke of how she had broken through the “bamboo ceiling” in commercial legal practice while balancing motherhood and how she had been helped by being mentored and was in turn giving back by mentoring others. Robb Bautista stood out as a young Asian man practising in the very challenging area of family law in a boutique Christchurch firm. He spoke of his pride in and commitment to helping vulnerable people, very often on legal aid, and he hoped that others might see that practising family law could be immensely satisfying.
Sir Anand summed up that Tina and Robb were excellent role models for the Asian legal community.
The NZ Asian Lawyers Awards can only grow from strength to strength and there will be two further Awards next year – Top Mentor of Asian Lawyers and Top Research on Asian Parties in the Courts.
It was a fabulous evening and we acknowledge with much gratitude the partnership of the New Zealand Law Society and the sponsorship of Tompkins Wake, Heritage Law and Russell McVeagh.
