The firm also welcomed Nasif Azam and Rayhan Langdana back from London
Russell McVeagh has brought in former Chapman Tripp senior associates Andy Cartwright and Jess Elder to boost its real estate and construction and banking and finance offerings.
Both join Russell McVeagh as senior associates. Cartwright works from Auckland, while Elder operates from both Auckland and Queenstown.
Cartwright has worked on matters across the entire project lifecycle. He has tackled strategy, tendering, procurement, contract drafting, negotiation and dispute resolution.
In particular, he focuses on construction and project agreements and is a specialist in major energy, renewables, industrial and infrastructure projects. His clients have included developers, government agencies and lenders.
Cartwright has advised on projects valued at over $60bn across New Zealand, the UK, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Pacific. He logged stints at Allen & Overy and Shearman & Sterling before returning to Chapman Tripp, where he had been a summer clerk and solicitor according to LinkedIn.
Elder focuses on corporate finance and has tackled capital markets transactions like syndicated and bi-lateral bank financing, wholesale and retail bond offers. Her clients have included borrowers and lenders, and she completed a secondment as a registered foreign lawyer with Clifford Chance in Hong Kong.
Russell McVeagh also welcomed Nasif Azam and Rayhan Langdana back to the firm as senior associates following their stints in London.
Azam works with the firm’s litigation and public law and regulation teams from Wellington. He brings a background in trial and appellate advocacy.
He has worked on regulatory investigations and enforcement, public law litigation, civil and commercial litigation, criminal law, and reputation and crisis management. He has appeared before New Zealand courts in criminal, regulatory investigation and enforcement, public law, and civil and commercial law cases for the Crown and public bodies.
Azam was a Crown litigator and prosecutor with Luke Cunningham Clere. He went on to pursue a master of laws at Harvard University as a Frank Knox Memorial Fellow in 2022. He then headed to London to practise as a solicitor with Schillings, where he was a litigator and reputation and crisis management lawyer guiding major businesses and senior leaders on regulatory scrutiny, media pressure, and major transitions and transactions.
Like Azam, Langdana practises with the litigation team. The Auckland-based litigator has handled contractual disputes, shareholder disputes, franchise disputes, warranty claims, fraud, misrepresentation and conspiracy claims, property disputes, consumer protection disputes, IP issues, professional misconduct claims, and matters involving criminal proceeds recovery and investigations. He has acted as sole or junior counsel in New Zealand courts, specialist tribunals and alternative dispute resolution forums.
Langdana was an instructing solicitor in the High Court of England and Wales and worked with Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan as a senior associate. He was once a junior barrister at Shortland Chambers.
He was a Fulbright Scholar and a Spencer Mason Scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, where he obtained his master of laws. He sits on the board of Equal Justice Project, a student-helmed pro bono organisation at Auckland Law School. He was also on the Auckland Community Law Centre board.
