Our Leadership

Lawyers for Climate Action Board

The LCANZI Board is elected each year by the members of Lawyers for Climate Action NZ Inc. It is comprised of leading lawyers, academics and practitioners committed using the law to drive climate action.

  • Jenny founded Lawyers for Climate Action alongside James in 2019. She has been President for most of the last five years. Jenny is a highly regarded commercial litigator at Shortland Chambers in Auckland. She represented LCANZI in our judicial review of the Climate Change Commission alongside James and Martin, and is involved in our other litigation projects.

  • Sally joined the Committee in August 2024. She was an in-house lawyer for the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society of New Zealand from 2010-2019. Sally has acted in several significant environmental proceedings, including representing Movement in its ongoing challenge to the Regional Land Transport Plan, and successfully acting for Forest and Bird in its challenge in the Supreme Court on the East West Link in 2024.

  • James is one of New Zealand's pre-eminent commercial and climate litigators, based out of Stout Street Chambers in Wellington. He was formerly a partner at Russell McVeagh in the corporate and litigation groups and chair of the national litigation team. He has an LLM from Harvard Law School and a DPhil from Oxford University. James acted for LCANZI in our ongoing judicial review of the Climate Change Commission and our successful judicial review of the ETS settings.

  • Martin has recently joined the Committee in 2024, but he has been giving his time to LCANZI litigation for years. Martin is a partner at specialist Auckland litigation and dispute resolution firm, Gilbert Walker. Martin acted pro bono alongside Jenny and James on our Climate Change Commission judicial review, as well as in our judicial review of ETS settings.

  • Debra joined the LCANZI Board in 2023. Debra is a sustainability consultant and a property lawyer currently working in-house at Kāinga Ora. Previously, she ran her own law firm specialising in property law, AlexanderDorrington Lawyers. Before joining the Board, Debra was our pro bono coordinator, matching LCANZI members to communities seeking pro bono support on climate-related legal matters. She has also been instrumental in our ongoing work with New Zealand Law Society to implement a resolution on climate change and guidance on climate-conscious legal practice.  

  • Frankie has been an LCANZI Board member since 2022. He is a former corporate lawyer from Russell McVeagh turned sustainability consultant. He now runs Près, a sustainability consultancy helping businesses transition to an inclusive, zero-carbon, circular and regenerative future. Frankie is the chair of LCANZI’s Corporate Governance Subcommittee.

  • Bjørn-Oliver joined the LCANZI Board in 2023. Bjørn-Oliver is a senior lecturer at Victoria University of Wellington’s Faculty of Law and Vice-Dean (International). Bjørn-Oliver specialises in international law, particularly focusing on the law of freshwater resources, climate change and the marine environment. Bjørn-Oliver is chair of LCANZI’s international issues subcommittee.

  • Bryce is another new LCANZI Committee member, joining in 2024. Bryce is a barrister based in Titirangi, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. He has expertise in public law and human rights issues, currently representing parties in the Waitangi Tribunal, and te Kōti Whenua Māori, the High Court, the Court of Appeal, and the Supreme Court.

  • Nicola is our first associate member to join the LCANZI Committee. Nicola is a kiwi who has recently moved home after living and working in the US on sustainability, most recently working as Deputy Director with the City & County of Honolulu's Office of Climate Change, Sustainability & Resiliency. She worked with NGOs for ten years at a philanthropic foundation, the San Diego Foundation, and worked as a climate advisor for the Natural Resources Defense Council, a leading environmental advocacy organisation that uses strategic litigation in the US.

  • Sophie has been a board member and board secretary at LCANZI since 2021. Sophie lives in Christchurch where she is Senior Legal Counsel at Selwyn District Council and is also an ILANZ Committee Member. She has previously worked as Senior Legal Counsel at the Christchurch City Council, as a litigation associate at Wynn Williams and Simpson Grierson, and as an in-house medico legal lawyers at the New Zealand Nurses Organisation.

  • Majka joined the LCANZI Committee in 2024, Majka is an associate at Tukau Law and has a passion for dispute resolution and assisting whanau, hapu and iwi in their claims to the Waitangi Tribunal. Outside mahi, Majka is a mama and co-chairperson on the Board of the Kohanga which her tamariki attend.

Lawyers for Climate Action Staff

We have a small core team of two full time staff:

Jessica Palairet - Executive Director

Jessica is LCANZI’s Executive Director. Jessica was a proud member of Lawyers for Climate Action for a number of years before starting as Executive Director in late 2023. She is a lawyer (previously a Judges' Clerk at the High Court and junior barrister at Shortland Chambers) and has a Masters in Law from New York University specialising in international climate change litigation. She has also worked as an International Human Rights Law Fellow at the United Nations in New York. 

Molly McDouall - Solicitor

Molly is Lawyers for Climate Action’s first in-house solicitor. She joined Lawyers for Climate Action in December 2024 from Wynn Williams in Queenstown, where she acted for Lawyers for Climate Action in our greenwashing proceeding against Z Energy.

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