ABOUT ANNE HALL

Before Anne Hall decided to help managed service providers globally, she had helped multiple IT companies reduce their business risk by providing legal advice on IT contracts. It began with being one of the first IT lawyers in New Zealand at a time when mobile phone use was in its infancy in New Zealand and lawyers were still a few years away from having computers on their desk. From a family of six children who were raised to seek excellence and practical solutions, Anne had an affinity for raising the right questions to identify the risks and then drafting agreements in a way that reduced those risks for her clients.

Deciding to leave the assurance of a national law firm and establish her own boutique IT law practice was an early step on her entrepreneurial journey. It gave Anne new insights into what running a business involved and the practical advice that business owners and managers need. Despite quickly attracting a blue-chip client list, Anne increasingly wanted to share her expertise more broadly and to help IT companies globally by providing fast, cost-effective access to legal agreements aimed at helping them to overcome day-to-day challenges and reduce business risks.

HOW IT ALL BEGAN

National Law Firm Experience (Rudd Watts & Stone now Minter Ellison Rudd Watts)

• 1991: commercial and company law work working with NZ leading commercial law partners
• 1992: ICT contracts for national mobile telecommunications carrier. Contracts with suppliers of voice messaging solution, SMS (text) solution, billing solution and many other IT solutions. Also included radio frequency licensing work.
• 1993 – 1999: IT procurement and implementation projects, and telecommunications work, for large corporate clients. Examples of this work included drafting agreements and advising on contract negotiations for:
- - Major IT solution for hospital
- - Development and implementation of new core banking system for a national bank
- - IT Solutions for forestry company
- - Y2K work including for healthcare insurance company
- - Ongoing telecommunications legal work, mobile telecommunications and satellite communications legal work

IT Law Experience (my law practice)
From 1999

• Satellite telecommunications network – advised the company supplying the key components for the network. Prepared memorandum of understanding for negotiations with network founder.
• Vodafone – advised Vodafone NZ on various IT projects (Vodafone acquired BellSouth NZ in 1998).
• Call centre software – represented software company. Advised on draft proposal / agreement for upgrade of interactive voice recognition solution in banking industry.
• Wireless network – advised company establishing network. Ongoing advice on a variety of matters including agreements with suppliers and channel partners and intellectual property advice including protection of conﬁdential information.
• Ministry of Health – engaged by the Ministry of Health to design and develop a standardagreement for use by the New Zealand health sector (including the Ministry, District Health Boards and other agencies) for signiﬁcant ICT procurement projects.
• Infrastructure / engineering company – advise on signiﬁcant IT projects for a major Australasian engineering company. Recent work includes advice on agreement with suppler of GIS (geographic information systems) and advice on major managed services agreement.
• Local government – advice to major regional council on desktop migration project. Included active involvement in negotiations with multinational supplier.
• Public Transport Ticketing system – advice to public transport company on procurement of new ticketing system and on-going support and maintenance. Prepare agreement with American supplier and assist with negotiation of agreement.ERP implementation projects –advice to New Zealand distributors of various products; including advice on agreements for major ERP (enterprise resource planning) implementations.
• SaaS / cloud - advice to company providing SaaS (software as a service) solution to freight management companies.
• Forestry – review and advise on agreements for supply of technology to European forestry company, including advice on escrow agreement.
• Texting solutions – advice to a provider of text messaging solutions including assisting with negotiations with large corporates and advice on dealing with telecommunications company requirements.
• Utilities companies – advice to utilities companies implementing new IT solutions to manage their operations.

HOW IT ALL BEGAN

ANNE HAS FEATURED