Celebrating 25 Years of Pacific Legal Network

Pacific Legal Network
3 days ago
5 min read

In 2025 Pacific Legal Network (PLN) is proud to be celebrating twenty-five years since its establishment. This remarkable milestone is a testament to PLN’s commitment to building enduring relationships, and facilitating and developing true, regional legal collaboration. PLN now spans almost every Pacific small island state from Timor Leste in the West to American Samoa in the East, and just about every Pacific Island nation in between.

The PLN Story

In 2020, after working in the Pacific for most of the 1990s in Vanuatu, PLN founder John Ridgway had the idea to formalise the many relationships and contacts he had made across the Pacific into a “one stop shop” offering to clients. By creating PLN, he was able to offer clients access to local, on the ground, Pacific Island lawyers in multiple Pacific countries, simplifying the process of obtaining legal advice. In twenty-five years, PLN has expanded to now include law firms across 22 locations in 20 countries in the network. PLN is still the only network of lawyers providing in-country legal advice from, and support to, home grown lawyers across the Pacific.

John Ridgway says “My 2 year experiment in Vanuatu has now stretched to 33 years across the Pacific, with the last 25 years dedicated to the creation and growth of PLN. I thought it was a good idea at the time, and I still do. I have been blessed to have had an amazing career, meeting truly incredible people working in some of the more challenging environments on our little planet – and all a short flight from the East coast of Australia. I am proud of our growth, of our longevity and of the commitment of our members to the network. It is often a challenge, but it is more often fun.”

Our core values and what sets us apart

Long term personal relationships founded on trust, respect and reliability are central to the network’s values and success. At the core of PLN is a focus on the development and enhancement of local Pacific indigenous law firms, providing upskilling opportunities and professional development support for indigenous lawyers living and working in some very challenging jurisdictions.

John Ridgway says “All of our member firms are locally owned, and sixty per cent of our member firms are also either owned or managed by women in heavily male dominated legal cultures. From humble origins, the PLN network has grown into a truly collaborative and inclusive one: we are gender positive, and we love that. Our longevity gives us credibility, and we have direct relationships with local institutions, ministries and other regulators across the region. These relationships have been established over twenty-five years of working in the Pacific, ensuring clients benefit from both our extensive experience and from these relationships. Our team’s in-depth knowledge of Pacific laws and unique jurisdictional issues, coupled with a nuanced understanding of local cultural variations, set us apart in the quality and timeliness of advice we can provide our clients.”

A chance to come together

Every year in October, PLN offers the opportunity for network members and affiliates to come together in person for a Regional Forum held in Sydney. This is the highlight of the PLN calendar and is always very well attended. For many PLN affiliates, getting to Sydney for the forum is no easy exercise in logistics. Such is flight connectivity in the Pacific, island hopping and time-zone skipping en route to Sydney is a common theme in getting here. It is one of the great modern migrations of the Blue Pacific! Our members make this journey because they value the relationships being part of PLN provides. All members of the network are genuinely invested in seeing each other grow and thrive.

In 2025 there will be fifteen Pacific countries represented at the Regional Forum, bringing together lawyers from a wide range of cultures and jurisdictions including Tuvalu, American Samoa, Timor-Leste, Samoa, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea, Cook Islands, Singapore, CNMI, New Zealand, Tonga, Solomon Islands and New Caledonia.

This year we are also hosting an evening event to celebrate the occasion of our twenty fifth anniversary. We will have visitors from all corners of the world attending including clients, institutions, development banks, PLN alumni and network members. As well as getting together our wider community, there will be special awards given, including to founding PLN member firms, and a live performance by William Kadi, our resident Solomon Islands rock star and environmental warrior. This night promises to be one to remember, mostly because of the huge range of important people it brings together in one space. Many key contributors to Pacific Island development over the past two and a half decades will be there.

John Ridgway says “Everyone loves a party, but no-one loves a party more than the PLN member firms. It is a true blessing to have them join us in Sydney, from the well-seasoned Pacific lawyers to the newbies across our Pacific firms, all with stories to share and lessons to be learnt. That is what makes these events so special.”

What are we celebrating?

For twenty five years, the PLN team has provided sophisticated commercial, corporate legal and regulatory advice to leading global and domestic corporations, investment banks, private equity providers, development agencies and state enterprises, from all industry sectors, in relation to their commercial and regulatory requirements across the Pacific region. Very often transactions are high profile, complex and involve significant cross border aspects. PLN has also been at the forefront of innovative renewable energy and sustainability projects, legislative and regulatory compliance enhancement, as well as the construction, roll-out and financing of many of the fibre optic cables and more recently, satellite projects, that have taken place across the Pacific and delivered wide ranging benefits to Pacific Islanders.

PLN has a long history of involvement with climate positive projects in the Pacific and has been an accredited observer to the United Nations Green Climate Fund since 2019. Due to our geographic focus on Pacific Small Island Developing States, our team sees its contributions to the mitigation of climate change as foundational to what we do. This year, PLN led the largest ever Solomon Islands compensation claim for the Rennell oil spill, on behalf of landowners, in collaboration with the Solomon Islands Attorney General’s office, the Ministry of Environment and local rural communities.

We believe this is all worthy cause for reflection and celebration before PLN embarks on another 25 years of innovation and collaboration across the Pacific landscape.