Keep curious, keep learning
Graduates of Victoria University are doing impressive things across the world. We caught up with alumnus David Woodnorth, who shared his advice, experience and memories.
What have you been doing since graduating?
After finishing my Master of Laws (LLM), I spent four years heading up legal teams in public sector organisations and then returned to the private sector to practise law as a barrister specialising in public law and employment litigation. During that time, I started ComplyWith as a project for a bunch of Crown organisations and, after a few years of that, gave up being a barrister altogether to focus on growing ComplyWith, which is now New Zealand’s leading cloud-based legal compliance business.
What are the highlights of your career so far?
The biggest highlight has been starting a new business, and growing it into something that is now starting to explore international opportunities—all built around a mission to humanise the law for people in business. I’d always struggled with the elitism and expense of access to the law, and the way this is perpetuated by its institutionalised complexity. The law is one of the last areas of business to be disrupted by innovation and technology and it is well overdue.
Describe your student experience at Victoria.
I enjoyed the constant stream of interesting guests attending the LLM classes—most with some kind of government connection. Probably the highlight was when we had Lord Cooke of Thorndon, unquestionably New Zealand’s greatest-ever jurist, join us for a class. There we were, only about 12 of us in the group, having an intense but convivial two-way discussion about public law issues of the day with this absolute legend of the law—where else could you do that? That night, it felt like we were at the centre of the law-school universe!
What was the most useful thing you learnt at Victoria?
Keep curious, keep learning—and that the effort to read a good paper or book on a topic can reward you many times over.