Get to know Shirley

Shirley Chan graduated from the University of Auckland with a Bachelor of Laws (Honours) and a Bachelor of Arts, majoring in French and History. She was admitted to the bar in February 2018. 

Shirley is passionate about history, languages, and exploring new places so has endeavoured to incorporate her education with travel as much as possible. During a French study abroad, she spent a month in Vichy, France living with a host family. More recently, she travelled to St Petersburg to see the Winter Palace, which brought to life the Russian history she studied at university. Currently, she is learning German and may branch out into Slavic languages – when she feels brave enough!

Shirley began her legal career at a specialist employment law practice where she worked on a range of contentious and non-contentious employment and health & safety matters.

She started at Fee Langstone in January 2020 and is enjoying her introduction to a wide variety of disputes.

“While I’m new to insurance law, I’ve always been interested in this area. Once I met a university politics professor while travelling and on hearing I was studying law, he said that insurance law would be a great area to go into. That was six years ago now, but his words have remained with me. The diverse range of legal issues and claims are what keeps insurance law interesting; almost anything can be insured and there is always something new to learn, such as the different industries involved. 

What sets Fee Langstone apart is definitely the culture. Everyone is so welcoming and down to earth, while being extremely intelligent and skilled in what they do. People take the work seriously but not themselves too seriously. I feel truly privileged to be part of such a great working environment.”

With an interest in the academic side of law, Shirley is also a tutor at Auckland Law School where she tutors the law of torts, maintaining an interest particularly in the law of negligence.

She is a self-confessed coffee fiend and brunch fanatic – on weekends she is typically scouting out the latest brunch spot, experiencing food envy when the order at the next table looks more aesthetically pleasing. 

DDI: 09 220-6362