Where are they now?
Chew Seng Kok
Executive Director, Zico Holdings Inc.
Geof Shirtcliffe
Commissioner, Law Commission
Judge Andy Nicholls
Wellington District Court Judge
Chew Seng Kok
1987-1989, Corporate & commercial, Wellington
Current role: Executive Director, Zico Holdings Inc.
What is a highlight from your time at Chapman Tripp?
I was very fortunate to work on a few major transactions, including the IPO of Petrocorp and also the management buyout of Sunbeam with Freehills, working alongside Steve Franks.
I was fortunate to be in practice at the time when the firm was heavily involved in the early days of corporatisation and privatisation under Roger Douglas. This experience inspired me to write my LL.M thesis on the State-Owned Enterprises Act 1986. During my tenure, I also founded the CTSY corporate law interest group, an informal forum designed to foster interaction between lawyers, industry participants, regulators, and other stakeholders.
Tell us about your current role and location?
I am the Executive Director of ZICO Holdings Inc., a company listed on the Singapore Exchange (SGX). We provide legal, advisory, corporate, trust, and governance services to a broad range of clients, with a network of offices across the ASEAN region. In my role, I oversee the strategic direction and operations of the group to ensure we deliver integrated, high-quality professional services.
What is the best thing about your current role?
With experience in legal practice in Malaysia and in managing a regional network of law firms under ZICOLaw, including work on M&A transactions and complex projects, I decided to package a number of services into a special purpose vehicle (SPV), which was listed on the SGX in November 2014. Since then, I have focused primarily on my role as a corporate and transaction advisor, drawing on over 30 years’ experience as a lawyer and leveraging my insights and client relationships as a trusted advisor.
What else have you achieved since leaving the firm?
In the early 1990s, I was one of the founders of the ASEAN Business Club, an association of chief executives from the region’s leading enterprises, which actively promotes trade and investment between ASEAN and other countries, including New Zealand. In August 2015, I was honoured to receive a New Zealand-ASEAN Award from the New Zealand Government, marking the 40th anniversary of New Zealand’s dialogue partnership with ASEAN.
In June 2025, my work and background as a corporate advisor and law firm leader was recognised by the Financial Times, which selected me as one of the “Top 20 Law Firm Leaders” from nearly 1,000 individuals featured in its Innovative Lawyers series over the past 20 years - a period marked by globalisation, growth, and technological disruption. I had previously received two “Innovation in Legal Business” awards from the Financial Times in 2014 and 2015.
I remain grateful for the training and exposure I received working with leading lawyers at Chapman Tripp, which provided a solid foundation for my subsequent career development.
Geof Shirtcliffe
1992-2020, Corporate Team, Wellington
Current role: Commissioner, Law Commission
What is a highlight from your time at Chapman Tripp?
There were many.
The jobs I found most rewarding were not the high-value, high-profile ones you might expect. They were the things for which there was an absence of precedent and an excess of furrowed brows. For example, unwinding totally out-of-control intra-group debt arrangements in a safe way (my flow diagrams for which probably still give Viv Cheng nightmares); devising carried-interest escrow arrangements for a uniquely complex managed co-investment structure; setting up iPredict (NZ’s only real-money prediction market).
The formal partnership role I found most rewarding was chairing Partnership Admission Committee. There is nothing more important to the future of a firm than determining who should lead it, and I always felt privileged to be entrusted with a significant role in that undertaking.
The informal roles that were most rewarding came in the second half of my time in partnership, when accumulated wrinkles were interpreted as signs of accumulated wisdom, and my counsel would be sought on all manner of things having less to do with law than with people. While I eventually tired of being a corporate lawyer, I never tired of “Hey GJ, can I get your view on something?” Equally as important to me were the various opportunities to contribute, in large ways and small, to the development of staff – particularly those who in time became my partners.
Mostly, though, the highlight of Chapman Tripp was being able to go to work and be myself in an environment where being oneself was not merely tolerated but encouraged. (Well, up to a point, the occasional over-reaching prank aside...)
Tell us about your current role and location?
I am three years into a five-year term as a Kaikōmihana | Commissioner at Te Aka Matua o te Ture | Law Commission, in Wellington. The Law Commission reviews areas of law referred to us by government and make recommendations for how to improve them. This involves extensive research, consultation through a range of methods (including by publishing issues papers and inviting public submissions) and detailed policy analysis. Ultimately, we publish our recommendations in a report presented to Parliament.
Projects generally take two to four years, and we typically have three or four on the go at a time. I am currently leading a review of laws relating to adult decision-making capacity. However, while individual Commissioners lead specific projects, all three (currently) of us review in detail and agree the terms of reference, the issues papers and the final reports for every project. So I have also needed to get my head around the Evidence Act, surrogacy, succession, preventive detention and post-sentence orders, hate crime, class actions and litigation funding, the Human Rights Act, emergency powers for pandemics and other threats, and the relationship between tikanga and state law. Some time next year we will commence a review of directors’ duties and liabilities, which I will lead.
What is the best thing about your current role?
There is a lot to enjoy about this role. I get to think hard about a huge range of laws. I get to engage with a wide range of people. I get to work with smart, dedicated and talented colleagues in a highly collegial environment. I get to recommend changes to the law which will improve people’s lives. But the thing that I most enjoy is that I so often feel outside my comfort zone, because the role requires so much more than just my existing knowledge and expertise.
In my previous life, if I was involved in a job it was because I had relevant expert corporate knowledge and experience. But decades of corporate legal practice are not deeply relevant to deep-dive reviews of non-corporate law. In my new life, I need to (try to) stay abreast of all legal developments rather than primarily corporate ones. I need to know how to be a good board member of an independent Crown entity. I need to know how to write issues papers and final reports, how to ask questions with which people can engage whatever their prior knowledge, how to direct in-depth research, how to determine policy parameters, how to engage both with subject-matter experts and with those whose lived experience gives them insights the experts don’t have, how to analyse submissions, how to engage with tikanga and te ao Māori, and how to do numerous other things with which, in many cases, my colleagues have more experience than me.
It is a role which challenges me in more ways and to a greater extent than I ever appreciated it would, and that is enormously energising.
What else have you achieved since leaving the firm?
I have continued to improve my cooking skills, particularly on the barbecue. I have improved my off-road driving skills sufficiently to navigate our 4WD to some extraordinarily beautiful out-of-the-way places in the South Island. I have marginally improved my skiing skills. I have got in better shape. I have survived my (apparently “stupid”) decision to ignore my wife’s advice and wander around some decidedly untouristy Baltimore neighbourhoods. I have acted in a short film made by film students. I have acquired a couple of tattoos. And I have continued to acquit myself well in the New York Times Spelling Bee puzzle. Life goals.
Judge Andy Nicholls
1998-2021, Competition and Regulatory Team & Managing Partner, Wellington
Current role: Wellington District Court Judge
Tell us about your time at Chapman Tripp.
I joined Chapman Tripp in January 1998. I was a young lawyer having just finished judges clerking. I was hired into the litigation team by Helen McQueen, who had recently been made partner and was focusing on competition law litigation. It was a litigation team that included Jack Hodder and Pheroze Jagose, among others. I finished up at Chapman Tripp at the end of 2021.
Somewhere in between those two dates was a brief foray as a public-sector lawyer in a legal team at MED, the precursor to MBIE, which lasted about 18 months before I came back to CT.
Most of my time was spent with the Competition and Regulatory team in the Wellington office (the team now led by Lucy Cooper and Simon Peart). I loved it.
What is the highlight from your time at the firm?
One highlight was the quality of the conversations that happen around the office. Moments when Chapman Trippers would stop briefly to help each other with a problem, or catch up on how things are going and take an interest in what was going on for people. They are important investments in team building, and building connection and trust. When you look back over 20 years, as I now do, you appreciate how good CT is at it, and how it rises to the top when someone asks you for highlights.
Tell us about your current role and location.
I am a District Court Judge based in Wellington. I do most of my work in the Wellington, Porirua, Hutt Valley and Masterton courts. I mainly sit in the criminal court, with a sprinkling of civil work.
What has been your biggest career achievement since leaving the firm?
Taking the plunge and starting again learning a new craft and a new role. I do think my time at CT helped with this – it has a culture of trying new things, not expecting that it will be easy straight away and knowing that a high standard will take practice and work, and the support of the team around you. That mindset and skillset is a real strength of CT and I have benefited from it. On that last point – the support of the team around you – the folks in my new ecosystem, criminal lawyers, police prosecutors, court staff, have been very supportive as I found my feet.
What else have you achieved since leaving the firm?
And not falling flat on my face in my first year, that was good too.
What is the best thing about your current role?
A lot of the work that goes on in the District Court is problem solving. A very large number of New Zealanders have very tough lives. Most of the time the New Zealander in front of me is taking responsibility for making a mistake by pleading guilty, and the conversation is about understanding how things got to here, and how to influence their path from here. You can’t change the world from where I sit, but hopefully, kiwi by kiwi, family by family, you can help.
Why I came back
Guy Houghton-Jones, Senior Associate
Guy re-joined Chapman Tripp in February 2022 after spending three and a half years away. This included two and a half years with Allen & Overy in London, and the year prior studying for an LLM in New York.
The culture of the firm was central to my decision to return. I had good memories of the professionalism, collegiality and sociability of Chapman Tripp from my first few years at the firm, and I wanted to come back to be part of that culture again.
While I was ready to return to New Zealand, and enjoy the relaxed environment, proximity to friends and family and access to nature, I still wanted work of the calibre I experienced in London. At Chapman Tripp, I regularly work with global businesses on really significant deals – there is plenty of opportunity to challenge myself and grow professionally.
In some ways, it’s as though I never left! Coming back was very straightforward and Chapman Tripp even provided an allowance to help with relocation expenses. It has been easy to re-integrate into the team, and I’ve enjoyed the opportunity to work both with colleagues from my first few years and with team members who joined more recently.
I’ve also particularly enjoyed the opportunity to apply experience gained in London in the New Zealand market.
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