Mai Chen

Mai Chen, Managing Partner, Chen Palmer Public and Employment Law Specialists, and Adjunct Professor in Commercial and Public Law at the University of Auckland Business School.

Chen Palmer has won the Best Boutique Law Firm in 2010, and the Best Public Law Firm in the New Zealand Law Awards in 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2013 and was a finalist in the Employment Law Awards in 2011. The Firm has offices in Wellington and Auckland and celebrates its 20th Anniversary in 2014.

Mai is the best-selling author of Public Law Toolbox (LexisNexis, March 2012) and was the inaugural Chair of New Zealand Global Women (2004 – 2011) and is the inaugural chair of New Zealand Asian Leaders (2013). She helped to establish the Pacifica Leadership Academy at BEST Pacific Institute of Education, led by Beatrice Faumuina.

Mai also launched www.willtolive.co.nz in July 2013, a site which allows the making of wills to be easy and which helps NZers to live life to the full.

Mai is a World’s Best New Zealander in the Kiwi Expatriates Network. Mai was listed in the 2009 and 2010 unlimited magazine’s top Influencers List.

Mai sat on the Securities Commission, on the New Zealand Board of Trade and Enterprise’s Beachheads Programme, the Asia New Zealand Foundation, the Advisory Board of AMP Life Limited (NZ), and was President of the Harvard New Zealand Alumni Association (NZ) for ten years. Mai sits on the New Zealand Law Society Public and Administrative Law Committee.

Professional Contact

• mai.chen@chenpalmer.com
• 095570350

Awards and Recognition

• Mai won Next Magazine's Business Woman of the Year in 2011. Mai won the supreme Judges Panel Award and the Professional Excellence Award at the New Zealand Chinese Business Elite Awards in 2012.
• Mai won the Business and Entrepreneur Women of Influence Award in 2013.
• Mai won the Business and Entrepreneur Women of Influence Award in 2013.