The three winners of this year’s Ambassador Scholarships were Jillian Button, I Ching-Tseng and Neil Carpenter.  

The Minter Ellison Ambassadors’ Scholarship Program was introduced in 2011 to provide its employees with the opportunity to undertake a special project or industry experience or to represent the firm at a national or international event. 

The firm has said it hopes the winners will use their scholarships - worth up to $10,000 – to broaden their horizons in their chosen field and then bring back to the firm lessons learned and new strategies that foster and sustain innovation.

“As last year's winners demonstrated, our Ambassadors grow professionally and personally from this experience and the firm as a whole also benefits enormously,” said Weber. “The 2012 winners have chosen activities that are consistent with our firm's overall business strategy and that will help us to advance that strategy.”

Button, a senior real estate associate at Minters’ Melbourne office, will investigate the emergence of biodiversity asset-trading markets in Australia.

Ching-Tseng, a dispute resolution associate in Brisbane, will visit Taiwan, Korea and Japan to focus on developments in international arbitration and trade and investment opportunities. 

Neil Carpenter, business development manager at the firm’s Sydney office, will attend the Legal Marketing Association’s annual conference in the US.

One of last year’s scholarship recipients, Kate Rintoul, attended INSEAD in Singapore to learn about competitive strategy and then visited the Minter Ellison offices around Australia to share her insights about what competitive strategy means for the firm's business and clients.

“At INSEAD, I was part of an international, multi-disciplinary group focusing on a five-step process to get a sustainable edge in your industry and a bigger share of the profit,” said Rintoul.

Ryan Gawrych, an energy and resources associate in Brisbane, used his 2011 scholarship to attend the annual Mining Congress in China.