Simpson Grierson Presents Employment Law Prize

Simpson Grierson Presents Employment Law Prize to Top University of Auckland Student.

26 October 2010: It was a great start to the long weekend for University of Auckland law student Max Harris, who received the 2010 Simpson Grierson Employment Law Prize at the firm's Auckland office on Friday.

This is the seventh year Simpson Grierson has recognised and rewarded scholarship in the field of employment law, by presenting a prize to the top senior student in the University of Auckland's Law 430 paper.

Simpson Grierson partner Phillipa Muir was delighted to present the $1,500 cheque to Max, saying "Max is an outstanding student and a well-deserved recipient of our firm's Employment Law prize for 2010."

"Simpson Grierson greatly values its relationship with the University of Auckland and is very pleased to recognise the Faculty of Law's top employment law student with this scholarship".

Bill Hodge, Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law, who also attended the prize giving, commented "In my experience, Max is unique among our students of recent years, being both an outstanding oral communicator - he won the Employment Law Moot - and a thoughtful analyst of legal problems – achieving the top mark in the exam in a very competitive year. I will watch his future career with interest."

Max Harris is in his final year of a BA/LLB (Hons) degree and believes he did well in the employment law paper because he was really interested in the content and enjoyed the way it was taught by Professor Hodge.

"Employment law is at the intersection of contract law and public law, and engages important policy questions about how the law balances competing policy concerns such as freedom of contract and the protection of the vulnerable. Because I was fascinated by these questions, studying hard for the exam was no chore and it was actually good fun communicating my views."

Next year, Max takes up a position as a judge's clerk to Chief Justice Sian Elias at the Supreme Court. After that, he intends to complete postgraduate study in public law and legal theory, and in the long-term, hopes to have a career in litigation as well as academia.

Simpson Grierson has funded 15 student scholarships and two prizes over the last year.

ENDS

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