News Item

The 2013 recipients of the NZ Law Foundation Ethel Benjamin Scholarship were announced at the annual Ethel Benjamin Address held in Dunedin on 8 May. This year the scholarship was jointly awarded to Sally Trafford and Emma Peart.

SALLY TRAFFORD graduated from University of Auckland in 2011 with a BA / LLB (Hons).

After spending two years as a judges clerk at the High Court in Auckland, Sally joined Shortland Chambers as a junior barrister in 2011. Since January this year Sally has worked as a locum associate for the London office of the law firm McCarthy Tetrault.

During her time at university Sally was involved in the management support group for YouthLaw and spent time mentoring law students at the University of Auckland. In 2008 she won the Bell Gully National Mooting Competition, and in the following year represented NZ in the team for the Philip C Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition.

Sally will use the scholarship to assist with studying for her LLM at Harvard University, starting later this year. Her research will consider options for tax law reform in New Zealand, and will focus on addressing issues of inequality, in terms of preventing tax avoidance and in terms of redistribution (of income and wealth).

EMMA PEART graduated from University of Otago in 2010 with a BA / LLB (Hons). She tutored in Law at the University of Otago in 2009, and taught law at Victoria University of Wellington in 2011. From 2010-2012 Emma was employed as a judges’ clerk at the High Court in Wellington and for the past 2+ years has been a solicitor in the litigation team at Chapman Tripp.

While studying at University Emma was winner of the NZ Law Students Association National Negotiation Competition, and has since judged negotiation competitions for the University of Otago and VUW. She was also a co-founder and executive committee member of the Society of Otago University Law Students Tenancy Programme that gave free legal advice to students on tenancy issues.

Emma takes up study at Cambridge later in the year for her LLM in private law. This will include taking papers in Commercial Equity and the Law of Restitution. Emma is planning to study the nature of joint ventures and to focus on whether parties to joint ventures should be subject to fiduciary obligation.

The Ethel Benjamin scholarship honours New Zealand’s first woman barrister and solicitor, who was admitted to the bar in 1897. Since the centenary of this event, the Law Foundation has awarded this scholarship annually to outstanding New Zealand women law graduates for post-graduate study. The award is worth up to $50,000 and details of the award and previous winners can be found on the Foundation’s website.