Thank you for your commitment to judge the New Zealand Law Awards 2024.

We value your contribution and assistance to ensure the integrity and rigour of these important awards.

The NZ Law Awards team has now reviewed the submissions and identified the excellence awardees in each category.

All excellence awardees have completed a submission that responds to the category criteria. They may have also included supporting documentation. Your role as a judge is to score each excellence awardee. The nominee with the highest score in each category will be the overall winner.

Excellence Awardees were announced on Thursday 5 September 2024, and the overall winners will be announced at the awards ceremony on Thursday 28 November 2024 at the Viaduct Events Centre, in Auckland.

JUDGING INSTRUCTIONS

All scoring will be completed online through our judging portal. If you have judged these awards in previous years, please note that we have a new platform this year. Your access link is included in the email you’ve just received from us. You can find a step-by-step guide on how to score below.

Please judge as many categories as you can. If you’re unable to assess all categories, make sure you don’t leave any category incomplete. For example, if there are 10 nominations in a category, ensure you score all 10. It’s crucial that each nomination receives an equal number of votes.

Please note that the information contained within the submissions is strictly confidential.  We appreciate your discretion.

We have done our best to remove any conflicts of interest. However, if you feel there is a conflict of interest, please do not judge those categories and inform us as soon as possible.

Please submit your completed scores via the portal by Friday 11 October. We kindly ask that you adhere to this date.

HOW TO SCORE

Step 1: Login using the link provided in your email

Step 2: Once you are logged in, you will be taken to a home page. Please click on “My Judging Assignments” on the side menu, as highlighted in yellow below.

Step 3: Click on ‘open’ under the ‘Action’ column to open the ‘New Zealand Law Awards 2024’ portal. Here, you should be able to see all the categories that have been assigned to you.

Step 4: You can either ‘View All Categories‘ or view a specific category by clicking ‘Open’ next to each category/award name, under the ‘Action’ column.

Step 5: Once you have clicked through your chosen category, you’ll be able to access each submission by clicking the “View Nomination” button.

Step 6: On the left-hand side of the screen, you can review each element of the submission by clicking through the Nominee Information and Nomination Submission tabs.

Step 7: On the right-hand side, you’ll find the ‘Evaluation Form‘, where you’ll be able to place your score and provide comments.

Step 8: Once you have provided your score and comments, please click ‘Save and back to list‘.

SCORE SYSTEM

Deal Awards 

For the deal Awards, please score out of 10 against each of the following four criteria, where 1 is the lowest score and 10 is the highest score. Note that half-decimal scores are also accepted (e.g., 7.5). The deal that receives the highest aggregate score will win that category. 

• Size – The financial value of the deal and the quantity of legal work involved 
• Complexity – The degree to which advanced legal and financial techniques and structures were applied to the deal 
• Breadth – The degree to which the deal spanned jurisdictions, practice areas, parties and industries 
• Innovation – The degree to which the deal involved ground breaking, original legal techniques and structures 

In-house, Firm and Industry Awards 

For the in-house, firm and industry awards, please score each submission out of 10 based on these criteria, where 1 is the lowest score and 10 is the highest score, against these criteria. Note that half-decimal scores are also accepted (e.g., 7.5). The excellence awardee that receives the highest aggregate score will win that category.

You will also be asked to provide a one-sentence reason for the score you have given.

Please ensure to save your scores once finalised.

AWARD CATEGORIES AND CRITERIA

To view all award categories and criteria, please click here and select the relevant category to view its criteria.

If you have any further questions, please contact Maria at [email protected].