PEOPLE

Experienced. Trusted. Direct.

All matters are led directly by experienced practitioners, with no delegation of responsibility.

Ayleath Foote

Ayleath is a senior litigation lawyer focused on complex or sensitive disputes. She is entrusted with matters requiring discretion, sound judgement, and carefully considered strategy.

Her practice spans trust litigation, commercial and property disputes, and insurance‑related matters. She has particular expertise in obtaining and responding to urgent relief, including injunctions and search orders, often in circumstances demanding immediate, decisive action.

Ayleath regularly advises on sensitive matters involving director liability, partnership and shareholder issues, personal and mental injury, and matters carrying significant personal or reputational risk. She also advises charitable trusts, including in relation to schemes under the Charitable Trusts Act, investigations, and regulatory inquiries.

Areas of Practice

Ayleath is frequently engaged in multiple, related disputes for the same client, requiring careful planning, coordination, and the maintenance of a clear and consistent approach across proceedings, experts and key stakeholders. The founding philosophy of Shannon Foote Law supports this approach with strategy rather than process alone being the focus.

She receives referrals from other law firms, instructions from senior counsel, and briefs from professional advisers. Her experience includes appearances at all levels of the courts, as well as mediations and arbitrations, tribunals, and public or regulatory inquiries.

Before founding Shannon Foote Law, Ayleath was a partner at a national law firm for 14 years. Prior to that, she was a senior associate in the London office of Freshfields, where she specialised in financial services and insurance litigation.

Ayleath has served on the Standards Committee of the Canterbury District Law Society, sits on the board of a family harm charity, and regularly volunteers at the Citizens Advice legal clinic. She holds a BA/LLB (Hons) and was admitted as a solicitor of England and Wales in 2002.

Contact Ayleath

Email: ayleath.foote@shannonfoote.co.nz
Phone: +64 3 662 9791
Mobile: +64 21 930 744

Chris Shannon

Chris Shannon is a senior litigation lawyer with more than 25 years’ experience acting in complex, high‑stakes disputes across civil, regulatory, and criminal jurisdictions. He is known for steady, strategic advocacy when clients are facing serious legal, commercial, or reputational risk.

Chris acts for insurers, businesses, professionals, and directors in matters where outcomes matter—regulatory investigations, defended prosecutions, insurance disputes, professional liability claims, and hard‑fought civil litigation. While an experienced trial advocate, he is equally focused on resolving disputes early and discreetly where that best serves the client.

Before co‑founding Shannon + Foote, Chris was a partner in a national litigation firm. Earlier in his career, he spent more than seven years as a Crown prosecutor, appearing regularly in jury trials and complex criminal proceedings. Across his career, he has appeared in over a hundred trials in the District and High Courts.

Areas of Focus

Litigation & Dispute Resolution
Chris advises and represents clients in complex civil disputes, including negligence, contractual, insurance, and recovery claims. His experience includes defending large professional liability claims against solicitors, engineers, architects, and other professionals, as well as acting in High Court proceedings involving injunctions, freezing orders, jurisdiction challenges, and judicial review.

Insurance & Professional Liability
Chris has extensive experience advising insurers and insured parties on indemnity issues, liability disputes, and recovery actions. He has acted in a wide range of claims arising from fire, flooding, earthquake damage, industrial incidents, agricultural liability, and defective construction or equipment, as well as professional negligence claims.

Health & Safety & Regulatory Prosecutions
Chris is regularly instructed in serious health and safety matters, including fatality investigations and prosecutions. He has successfully defended WorkSafe and private prosecutions, and obtained costs awards against regulators. He also advises insurers, employers, and directors throughout investigations, enforcement action, and sentencing.

Resource Management & Environmental Enforcement
Chris has acted in relation to Resource Management Act investigations and charges, having successfully defended companies and directors against allegations of unlawful discharges, disturbance of wetlands or rivers, and other environmental matters. His experience includes obtaining dismissals of charges and successful costs applications.

Approach

Chris is a pragmatic, experienced dispute resolver. He understands that for many clients litigation is a means to an end, not the end itself. His focus is on protecting clients’ interests, reputation, and commercial position through clear advice, early strategic decision‑making, and confident advocacy when matters cannot be resolved quietly.

Clients work directly with Chris. This ensures quality of advice and consistency of outcomes. This senior-led approach reflects the core philosophy of Shannon Foote: specialist, hands‑on expertise in matters where judgment and experience make a material difference.

Contact Chris

Email: chris.shannon@shannonfoote.co.nz
Phone: +64 3 662 9792
Mobile: +64 21 860 046

George Mander

George provides strategic, reasoned advice to clients engaged in complex disputes. He is a practiced advisor and advocate with more than seven years’ experience.

George’s experience includes a broad span of civil disputes, with a particular focus on contentious trust, company and commercial issues. His work includes acting for trustees, executors, shareholders, beneficiaries and directors.

George uses his broad background and strategic focus to assist a diverse range of clients. He has represented clients in mediations, the District Court and High Court. His primary focus is on resolving complicated disputes involving significant factual challenges or multiple legal issues.

Areas of Focus

George acts for clients engaged in a wide range of disputes and through each stage of the dispute resolution process.

He has worked across practice areas including charities, shareholder disputes, claims against estates and trusts, negligence, property and commercial issues and partnership disputes.

Before joining Shannon Foote Law, George was an Associate at a national law firm. He regularly worked alongside non-contentious lawyers both to prevent/address disputes at an early stage and to resolve more entrenched disagreements.

George is committed to swiftly understanding the pressure-points of each dispute, clearly advising clients and executing a strategy which addresses each issue in a dispute in a way which best meets each client’s needs.