Anne Hinton QC admits when she first met her now husband of 30 years, Peter Hinton, at Auckland Law School, it wasn't love at first sight. In fact, as the female half of the Hinton couple tells it, it wasn't until Peter beat her to a law clerk position in the Simpson Coates corporate department that he really got her attention.
"When we graduated in 1976 it was difficult to get a job," recalls Anne. "There were only about 40 available and quite a few of us graduated."
There were almost 50 applicants alone for the Simpson Coates job. Anne had three interviews for the position and ended up on a shortlist of three.
"I didn't get the job though because the successful applicant had to share an office with a partner and that partner didn't feel comfortable sharing with a woman," recounts Anne.
"Points for honesty but I'm glad things have changed since the 70s," she adds.
While they may have snubbed Anne for her gender, it was acknowledged that she was the best of the three. The firm then decided to see who else might be available. At that point Peter was not pursuing a job because he was busy completing his honours and commerce degrees. The firm sought him out and offered him the job which he accepted.
"It did upset me but it didn't make me mad," recalls Anne. "At that time you just didn't think like that and I don't think today that people would be that honest."
With hindsight she now recognises it was for the best that Simpson Coates turned her down. She ended up at Grierson Jackson as a litigator.
"I was much more suited to being a litigator and I probably wouldn't have enjoyed corporate practice so much," she says.
It doesn't take much to see that even though the Hintons started their legal lives at separate firms, it was destiny they came together - particularly as Simpson Coates and Grierson Jackson were set to merge to form the firm now known as Simpson Grierson. Later in their careers, the married couple were then also partners at the same firm.
Before that could happen though both put in some time in the US legal scene - Peter at Harvard Law School and Washington stalwart Covington & Burling and Anne working at Harvard Business School and then at a boutique maritime law practice Schmeltzer Aptaker & Sheppard.
When they came back from the US both flirted with new firms. In Peter's case he joined Russell McVeagh. "They were after me and had even come to the States to talk with me and I wanted to know what it was I would be passing up," he says.
After 18 months, he returned to Simpson Coates.
For Anne, although Grierson Jackson extended an offer to her when she returned, she joined Hesketh & Richmond and became partner within two years.
That's where she was when they had their first child - Andrew, now 20 and studying physics, maths and economics. Campbell who is 18, wants to be a lawyer although his mother notes that he's very enthusiastic about French.
"When we had the kids, it was much easier in comparison to young lawyers today," says Anne. "We had settled as partners so there was a lot of trust and we were part of the system."
When Simpson Grierson was born the new firm approached her. Being both married and partners in the same firm was not a problem though.
"If Peter and I had been in different firms with no common connection then it might have been a different story," says Anne. "But we had both come through one side or the other of the merged firm, we were both partners and we were known entities - people also knew that we had different views and distinct personalities."
And what are those differences?
Anne says, with a suspicious smile, Peter is more caring and loving while he says that she is more extreme and willing to take risks. In any case, their time as partners at the same firm was actually marked by distance. With the office spread out over nine floors, they say that their paths rarely crossed.
Anne says she departed the firm seven years ago, which she says was, and still is, part of the "inevitable trend of many senior litigators going to the bar." She also mentions that it can be driven by the desire to become Queens Counsel - which she was fortunate enough to achieve in 2002.
Since then, while Peter has made his reputation in NZ boardrooms working on some of the country's biggest mergers, acquisitions and IPOs, Anne has honed her litigation skills as an expert on trust matters and a relationship property lawyer where she deals with the corporate and property end of relationships.
Or, as she puts it, "it's where corporate meets matrimonial," which appears to be a fairly good summation of how their professional - and personal - lives have entwined.