The NZLS CLE Employment Law Conference 2026 ran 4–5 June 2026 at Tākina Wellington Convention and Exhibition Centre (in person and online), chaired by Greg Cain of Dentons and delivered by NZLS CLE — a flagship annual professional-development conference for the legal sector.
The CLE Employment Law Conference 2026 was held over two days, Thursday 4 June and Friday 5 June 2026, at the Tākina Wellington Convention and Exhibition Centre in central Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington, with an online live-stream option. The New Zealand Law Society confirmed the dates and Wellington-and-online format in LawTalk Issue 964, and its own event listing records an 8:45am start.
The programme was built around the forces reshaping employment law in Aotearoa: recent amendments to the Employment Relations Act, the proposed replacement of the Holidays Act, artificial intelligence in practice and litigation, the evolution of tikanga in the employment space, and neurodiversity at work.
The conference is a New Zealand Law Society continuing legal education (CLE) event, delivered through NZLS CLE and registered via lawyerseducation.co.nz, the Law Society's professional-development arm. The 2026 edition was chaired by Greg Cain of Dentons in Wellington, working with a planning committee. In LawTalk Issue 964, Cain framed the profession's stewardship role amid technological and social change as the animating theme for the conference.
The Law Society lists the target audience as employment law practitioners, along with in-house and immigration lawyers. Day one opened with a keynote by Catherine Beard and Sandra Grey, followed by sessions on AI, legislative reform, tikanga Māori at work and paired breakout streams, closing with a networking event. Day two featured a keynote by Tova O'Brien and Ali Romanos, plus sessions on trauma-informed investigations, remedies, bargaining, and protected disclosures. The most popular breakouts were broadcast by live stream.
Tākina Wellington Convention and Exhibition Centre sits in the heart of Wellington, opposite Te Papa on Cable Street, which places delegates within short walking distance of the waterfront hotel cluster and the Courtenay Place and Lambton Quay precincts, easing accommodation and after-hours networking. Wellington's compact CBD and the central-city location minimise delegate transfer times, and the hybrid online option extended reach to practitioners unable to travel to the capital.
The Employment Law Conference is one of NZLS CLE's flagship annual professional-development conferences and a recurring, high-value association booking for Wellington's business-events calendar. Its hybrid delivery from Tākina, the capital's purpose-built convention centre, demonstrates the venue's role in anchoring national association conferences that combine in-person delegate spend with broad online participation across the legal sector.
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