KEY POINTS:
When Auckland commercial lawyer Sarah Pidgeon heard the topic of this year's Commonwealth Law Conference was to be "Governance, Globalisation and the Commonwealth", she knew she had to attend.
And when she receives the prize for penning the winning Commonwealth Lawyers Association Legal Writing Competition entry she will have her father, Auckland Queen's Counsel Colin Pidgeon, to thank.
It was he who inspired the 29-year-old commercial litigator to work in the law.
Miss Pidgeon says her article - titled An Assessment of the Impact of Globalisation on Legal Practice in the Commonwealth: Globalisation by a different name? - considers how the legal profession needs to fit into a global economy, but that this should not be at the expense of ethics.
One of the byproducts of globalisation is the growth of technology, which is also something from which lawyers can benefit, she says.
But many less developed countries don't have access to that same technology.
For the first time in more than 25 years the conference will be held in Africa. Miss Pidgeon initially took out a loan to pay her way to the venue, in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, but her winning article has repaid that.
She hopes to learn as much as possible and says: "One reason I am going to this conference is to work out how I can make more of a difference through my legal practice."
The connection with Africa is important to the Pidgeon family. Mr Pidgeon was instrumental in ensuring a 1971 Commonwealth law conference was not held in Uganda when that country was under the rule of dictator Idi Amin, and was one of a group of international lawyers sent to Uganda to determine whether the country should host the conference.
The wider world was then unaware of the atrocities being committed by Amin, but Mr Pidgeon convinced his party that Uganda should not host the conference because there was no rule of law. The Ugandan legal profession was being persecuted, with many lawyers and judges disappearing, presumably murdered.
Mr Pidgeon believes it is still just as important for young lawyers to speak out against injustices, wherever they might happen. "It's easy for us to go on our merry way, oblivious to things outside the country."
Unrest in Fiji was one example of a situation where people were today being denied justice, but governments across the world were entering into arrangements with bad regimes "because it is politically expedient".
"All these issues need to be spoken out against."
Miss Pidgeon leaves for Africa tomorrow. She will spend some time catching up with a child she sponsors in Kenya before going to Nairobi.
The conference is from September 9 to 13 and Miss Pidgeon's article will be published in November's Commonwealth Law Journal.
