Stacey Shortall

Stacey Shortall is a New Zealand lawyer, based in Wellington. She has received a number of awards for her social programmes, which aim to develop children and women to their full potential.

Shortall was born and raised in the Manawatu, in the North Island of New Zealand. She graduated with a BCA (Accounting) degree from Victoria University of Wellington in 1994, followed by a LLB in 1995. She completed her LLM degree in Alberta, Canada in 1996.

Shortall worked for Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, a Wall Street law firm in New York for 11 years before returning to New Zealand in 2010. She then took a position as partner with the law firm Minter Ellison Rudd Watts. Shortall specialises in litigation cases and regulatory matters.

Charitable work

While working in New York, Shortall volunteered for Volunteers of Legal Service on the Incarcerated Mothers Law Project at Bayview Correctional Facility in Manhattan. She represented incarcerated mothers facing termination of their parental rights, a mother sentenced to 20 years to life in prison for the murder of her abusive boyfriend and for a refugee mother who had been tortured including raped. Shortall also volunteered for Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem to advocate for mothers seeking to have their children returned from fostercare.

In 2005, Shortall spent a month-long sabbatical working in Ghana for NGO Women For Progress which focussed on violence against women and children including through village outreach programs. Shortall also volunteered for the Ghanaian Police Force to assist with investigations and prosecutions of rapists.

In 2014, Shortall initiated a "Homework HELP Club" at a primary school in a low socio-economic area of Porirua, Wellington. She organised volunteers from her law firm to visit the school and help children with their homework for one hour a week. She also assists other schools and organisations to connect with each other to form similar Clubs.

Shortall also organises a group of volunteer lawyers in Auckland and Wellington to assist mothers in prison and to encourage them to maintain a relationship with their children. Her programme was developed in consultation with the Department of Corrections and Shortall trains all volunteers involved.

Shortall started the WHO DID YOU HELP TODAY movement in New Zealand to connect skilled people with not-for-profit community projects.

Recognition

In 2015, Shortall won the Community and Not-For-Profit category Award in the New Zealand Women of Influence Awards. The same year, she won LawFuel's Lawyer of the Year Award.

In 2016, Shortall received a Blake Leader Award from the Sir Peter Blake Trust. Also in 2016, she was recognized with a Kiwibank Local Hero Award.