AMANDA HARRINGTON NAMED AUSTRALASIAN LAWYER AND NZ LAWYER ELITE WOMAN 2026

Amanda Harrington of Pivotal Law Group, has been named among Australia and New Zealand’s Elite Women 2026 for her achievements and innovative legal practice.

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA, October 22, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Amanda Harrington, principal and founder of Pivotal Law Group Pty Ltd, has been named as one of the top female lawyers in Australia and New Zealand, selected for the Elite Women 2026 list published by Australasian Lawyer and NZ Lawyer. The recognition highlights Harrington’s record as an insolvency litigator and her decision to launch a NewLaw firm built on generous staff incentives, flexible working and partially fixed pricing.

About the Elite Women 2026 list

Elite Women 2026 is the sixth annual list from Australasian Lawyer and NZ Lawyer, recognising 105 outstanding female leaders in the legal profession across Australia and New Zealand. Honourees work in roles connected to the legal profession and have demonstrated a passion for the law through their influence on it. The report is proudly supported by Queensland Young Lawyers and Otago Women’s Law Society.

Selection criteria

In June 2026, Australasian Lawyer and NZ Lawyer invited legal professionals from across Australia and New Zealand to nominate outstanding female leaders for the sixth annual Elite Women list. Nominees were required to be working in a role connected to the legal profession, to demonstrate a passion for the law through their influence on the profession, and not to have been previously recognised on the Elite Women list.

Nominators were asked to provide detailed information about their nominee’s accomplishments and initiatives over the past 12 months, including specific examples of professional achievements and contributions to the legal industry. To determine the final list of 105 Elite Women, the editorial teams at both titles reviewed all nominations, assessing each nominee’s meaningful impact on the legal profession.

Amanda Harrington’s recognition

Harrington is one of three winners profiled in depth in the Elite Women 2026 report. The report credits her with building a NewLaw firm with an incentive arrangement that mirrors the value of equity without transferring ownership, tying rewards to the firm’s collective success rather than individual billing targets.

Harrington said the early success in the firm’s first seven months fast-tracked plans to hire lawyers and support staff well ahead of her original two-year timeline. She named resilience as her biggest strength: “I am able to pivot quickly and create new goals, or salvage what others would consider to be an unrecoverable situation.”

Asked why the firm does not carry her name, Harrington told the report: “The firm doesn’t have my name as I’m planning to bring on partners, and I think it’s important to put all of the team in the spotlight.”

About Amanda Harrington

Amanda Harrington is principal of Pivotal Law Group in Collingwood, Melbourne, and a Law Institute of Victoria Accredited Specialist in Commercial Law. Admitted to practice in the Supreme Court of Victoria in 2015, she obtained partnership in 2020 at the suburban firm she joined straight out of university, Scanlan Carroll Lawyers, before launching Pivotal Law Group in August 2025.

An insolvency litigator acting for creditors, Harrington was an instructing solicitor in Badenoch Integrated Logging Pty Ltd v Bryant [2021] FCAFC 64 and in the subsequent High Court appeal, Bryant v Badenoch Integrated Logging Pty Ltd [2023] HCA 2, which upheld the abolition of the peak indebtedness rule and reshaped how Australian insolvency law treats preference claims. Much of her work involves recovery action for creditors, often acting for liquidators to unwind uncommercial transactions, including a speculative-basis recovery of about $4 million for creditors of one collapsed investment scheme.

She was named Insolvency Partner of the Year at the 2022 Lawyers Weekly awards, and was a finalist in the same year for Litigation Partner of the Year and New Partner (less than three years). She was a finalist for Litigator of the Year at the 2023 Australian Law Awards and also Insolvency Partner of the Year in 2023, and prior to commencement of hiring staff, was a finalist for Sole Practitioner of the Year at the 2026 Australian Law Awards.

Harrington mentors solicitors at Pivotal Law Group and at other Melbourne firms. At her previous firm she helped to train at least 12 junior lawyers and students, 11 of them women. She also meets MPs and members of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services on a pro bono basis regarding implementation of recommendations from the 2022 inquiry into the insolvency industry, to which she made submissions.

About Pivotal Law Group

Pivotal Law Group is a NewLaw commercial litigation and insolvency firm based in Collingwood, Melbourne, founded by Amanda Harrington in August 2025. It operates on partially fixed pricing and retainers so clients can budget and act on legal problems before they escalate, offers fully hybrid working, and extends generous incentives to all staff.

Pivotal Law Group
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