During the year, the legal profession has seen new entrants, as an emerging number of influential commercial lawyers and litigators increasingly exert their influence over the profession.

Women continue to also better reflect the preponderance of women law graduates as capable and effective women lawyers play a key role in shaping the delivery and conduct of legal services in the profession.

Prominent criminal lawyer Emma Priest has joined the ranks of leading lawyers on LawFuel’s Power List as a result of both her work as an effective advocate and an effective legal educator.

Emma Priest’s her’s two-decade journey has been marked by versatility and a career as a criminal lawyer, a job she loves as she recently wrote – notching up over 100 jury trials and appellate cases involving violence, sexual offenses, and complex drug crimes.

.A University of Auckland alumna with first-class honors in psychology and law, she has crafted a career that bridges prosecution and defense, which has seen her take a higher profile approach towards building a greater understanding – for lawyers and defendants alike – of the criminal justice system.

Her professional narrative is defined by remarkable versatility. After spending 11 years at Meredith Connell as a Senior Crown Prosecutor, Priest launched her own practice in 2016 and has also been extensively involved in legal education, regularly speaking at CBA, NZLS, ADLS Legalwise and College of Law events, as well as charitable work with Variety New Zealand and being involved in other initiatives demonstrating a principled and proactive role in building a greater understanding of the criminal justice system for victims.