Lucy Robinson's uni friends made law sound 'really interesting'

Lucy Robinson had no prior exposure to the legal profession until she got to university. Her law student friends made legal theory sound “really interesting”, and she wound up taking a class for credits.

A couple of decades later, the woman who didn’t know if she would practise law after university is a property law star with Anthony Harper – earlier this year, she was promoted to special counsel at the firm.

In the first part of this August interview, Robinson tells NZ Lawyer how she got into property law, what led her to Anthony Harper, and how it felt to receive the news of her promotion.

How did you get started in law?

So I didn't originally have any intention of being a lawyer, we don't have any lawyers in our family, and I hadn't really come across any lawyers. I was studying English and history at Otago University, and a lot of my friends were studying law. They actually made it sound really interesting – that's the interesting part sometimes, the theory.

I did first year law in my second year, just for some credits, and then kind of fell into it from there. Still wasn't sure if I would be a lawyer after uni, but 20 years later, and I am still a lawyer.

How did you figure out which particular area of the law you wanted to focus on?

I think that's an interesting question, especially for juniors. At the moment, it's a tough market out there, and some of the people we're looking at for positions have just got such amazing CVS and everyone's so accomplished.

I was happy to be working anywhere; when you're at law school, you don't have a lot of experience of what it will be like to be a lawyer in the field. If you've got an interest and a passion, then obviously go for that passion. But I definitely didn't think I'd be a property lawyer; I started off as a corporate lawyer –in more of a corporate, commercial role – with some property experience. Then when I went to the UK, I ended up in a property role there, which was great. When I came back, I looked for property specialist roles, so my career's developed over time as a property specialist.

But it definitely was good to be flexible at the start and just see where the opportunities came up, because it's difficult to know what a job will be like until you're in it, really.

What led you to start at Anthony Harper?

I was job hunting from London and didn't have a lot of knowledge of the current legal positions open in Christchurch. We were definitely coming back to Christchurch; my husband's starting at the University of Canterbury. So I knew which city we were going to, but I really didn't have a huge understanding of the legal framework, if you will.

And so it was all a bit of a gamble, and it was based on a lot of searching of websites and things like that. So I would advise people to take it a bit more seriously, but I'm really lucky that I ended up where I did. I think we've got a really great team here and doing some really great work, but it wasn't necessarily through knowing exactly where I wanted to go – lots of other great firms here that I'm sure would also have been great to end up in as well.

Christchurch is a good city for property law with all the redevelopment, and there's some really exciting projects going on. So it was an exciting time to be coming back.

Are there any initiatives that the firm is doing that you're particularly excited about?

We've had a couple of big ones recently: we just had our rebrand, which I think was really exciting. It gives us a fresh new look, a chance to re-explain our story and to make sure we ourselves internally, are on the same page as to what we're aiming for and what we're about here at Anthony Harper. The new motto is “Partners in Progress”, and I think that encapsulates really well where we're trying to be with clients and aim for the level where we can be nimble and efficient and helping clients with their journey. I think that was a really exciting thing to be part of.

And then the other new development which was really cool is our Discovery Specialists offering; our litigation team has put together a discrete offering where they will do discovery work for small, medium firms or practitioners that want to outsource discovery. They can scale it up or down depending on the size of the job. A lot of that's driven by AI and by new technology, which I think is going to be a huge part of all types of law going forward.

How did it feel to get the news that you were going to be promoted to special counsel?

It was really good – it happened really quickly. I'm really lucky to have a really supportive team who drove that process, even though I've only been here three years.

Next week, Robinson talks the challenge of shifting jurisdictions and why she loves property law.