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About the firm

Counsel that pairs deep local knowledge with international standards.

Neel Shivam Lawyers was founded in 2004 on a single conviction — that Fiji's businesses, families and international counterparts deserved a law firm that was as sophisticated as the matters they brought to it, and as accessible as the moment required.

Neel Shivam founded the firm in 2004 after a decade in private practice in Suva and a period of teaching law at universities in Fiji and overseas. The conviction that started the firm was simple: that the Fiji Islands' commercial life — increasingly international, increasingly complex, increasingly conducted at speed — deserved counsel that could keep pace.

Two decades on, the practice we have built has remained loyal to that founding idea. We act for public and investment companies, lenders, founders, family offices, foreign investors and private clients across the Fiji Islands and the wider Pacific. Our work spans commercial and corporate law, banking and finance, real property and conveyancing, civil and commercial litigation, mergers and acquisitions, foreign investment, intellectual property, and family law and estates. Both managing partners are appointed Notaries Public — so the notarial authentication that cross-border work routinely requires is handled in-house, on the matter team, without external referral.

What unites it is a way of working. Every significant matter is partner-led from the first conversation. Every client is briefed in plain English to international standards. Every response moves at the speed the client's business requires — and when that speed means a weekend, or after hours, or an offshore time zone, we are there.

The firm has, over the years, become a Fiji practice of which our clients in Sydney, Auckland, Mumbai, Hong Kong and beyond can speak with the confidence they reserve for their best local counsel. That, in the end, is what we are most proud of.

— That is the practice we have built. And that is why we keep being asked back.

How we work

Three principles, applied without exception.

i.

Partner-led, end to end.

Every significant matter is led personally by a partner — from initial conversation through to completion. Clients are not handed down to junior associates the moment the engagement is signed.

ii.

Plain English, international standards.

We brief in writing, in plain English, to the standards international counsel and in-house teams expect. No throat-clearing. No legalese. Clarity is itself a form of expertise.

iii.

Responsive to the moment.

We move at the speed the matter requires — including on offshore time zones and outside ordinary hours when a closing, an injunction or a regulator demands it. Speed without compromise.

The partners

The lawyers you'll actually speak to.

Two partners, each leading their practice areas, each personally accessible. Senior counsel is not a marketing claim at our firm — it is the working pattern.

Profile

Neel Shivam founded the firm in 2004, after the formative decade of his career as a litigation lawyer in private practice in Suva. Among the matters he served on in those early years was the Chandrika Prasad case — hailed by the courts of Fiji as the greatest constitutional case to be ruled on in our jurisdiction, and the judgment that gave Fiji back the 1997 Constitution after the 2000 coup. Neel was co-counsel.

He graduated with a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Waikato in New Zealand and obtained his Professional Diploma in Legal Studies from the University of the South Pacific. He was admitted to the High Court of Fiji in 1998.

Today, Neel's practice has a particular emphasis on administrative law, banking and finance, company law, employment, foreign investment, intellectual and real property law. He personally supervises the firm's conveyancing division and leads on every significant commercial matter the firm undertakes. He remains a keen litigator and continues to lead the firm's pro bono criminal work.

Neel has served as Council Member and Treasurer of the Fiji Law Society. He has lectured in law at the University of the South Pacific, the University of Fiji and Central Queensland University — a continuing commitment to the next generation of Fijian lawyers that informs the firm's culture of senior-led mentorship and partner accessibility.

Practice areas

Banking & Finance Commercial & Corporate Real Property & Conveyancing Foreign Investment Employment Intellectual Property Civil Litigation

Memberships & positions

Fiji Law Society — former Council Member & Treasurer Lecturer · USP, Univ. of Fiji, CQU

Notable matter

Co-counsel · Constitutional law

Chandrika Prasad v. Republic of Fiji — hailed by the courts of Fiji as the greatest constitutional case to be ruled on in our jurisdiction. The judgment restored the 1997 Constitution following the events of 2000.

Direct contact
neel@neelshivam.com.fj +679 330 5538

Profile

Poonam Maharaj-Wong joined the firm at its inception in 2004, having begun her career at O'Driscoll & Shivam Lawyers in the years immediately prior. She was made Partner of the firm in April 2007 — one of the youngest lawyers in Fiji to be appointed to partnership.

She graduated with a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Waikato in New Zealand and completed her Diploma in Professional Legal Studies at the Waikato Bay of Plenty District Law Society's Institute of Professional Legal Studies. She was admitted to the High Court of New Zealand in 2000 and to the High Court of Fiji in 2002, and is an appointed Notary Public.

Poonam leads the firm's commercial practice and chairs its internal Compliance Risk Team. Her work spans general company and commercial law, contract negotiation and drafting, contracts-related disputes, corporate mergers and acquisitions, creditor's remedies, employment, foreign investment, real-property transactions and taxation. She is a strong advocate of alternative dispute resolution as a substitute for adversarial approaches in commercial dealings — a philosophy that has become a defining feature of her practice and her regional voice on commercial-law matters.

Poonam has presented as Speaker at the 35th LAWASIA Conference in Sydney (2022) on real-estate ownership fraud in Asia Pacific, at the LAWASIA Virtual Annual Conference (2021) on the pandemic's effect on real-estate transactions across the region, and at the China Law Society's China-Oceania Legal Forum in Guangzhou (2018), where her paper on the legal issues facing Chinese companies operating in Oceania was published in the conference handbook. She has chaired sessions at Fiji Law Society and LAWASIA conferences and served as honorary module instructor for Commercial Law in the University of Fiji's Graduate Diploma in Legal Practice course.

Earlier in her career, between 2000 and 2002, Poonam served as a paralegal at G.P. Lala & Associates — where she drafted court documents, prepared affidavits and conducted witness interviews for the Chandrika Prasad case, the constitutional matter on which the firm's Managing Partner Neel Shivam served as co-counsel. From very different roles, the two principals of Neel Shivam Lawyers share a connection to the most consequential constitutional case in Fijian history.

Practice areas

Commercial & Corporate Mergers & Acquisitions Commercial Contracts Foreign Investment Real Property Transactions Employment Creditor's Remedies Taxation Advisory

Memberships & appointments

Fiji Law Society — Vice-President (2025–current) Fiji Law Society — former Executive Council Member & Assistant Treasurer (2016–2020) LAWASIA — former FLS Council Representative (2018–2020) LAWASIA Real Estate & Transactions Committee — Membership Officer (2021–2022) SPSE Annual Awards — Judging Panel (2017, 2018, 2019) University of Fiji — former Honorary Module Instructor, Commercial Law Fiji Women Lawyers Association — Member

Notable

Vice-President · Fiji Law Society · 2025

In 2025 Poonam was elected Vice-President of the Fiji Law Society — the elected leadership body of the Fijian legal profession — following almost a decade of service to the Society as Executive Council Member, Assistant Treasurer and Council Representative to LAWASIA.

Direct contact
poonam@neelshivam.com.fj +679 330 5538
Beyond the partners

A senior-led team, built around our clients.

Behind Neel and Poonam stands a team of solicitors, conveyancers and support professionals who carry the firm's work day to day — drafting, registering, researching, attending to court, and to the dozens of routine tasks that make a complex practice run smoothly.

Every member of the team is trained to the same standard, and every matter is owned by a partner. We expand the team as our clients need us to — and we are always open to talking with experienced lawyers and graduates who share the way we work.

Visit us

Two offices, national reach.

Our principal office is in central Suva — minutes from the High Court, the Reserve Bank of Fiji and the major commercial banks. Our branch office in Nadi sits at Airport Central Building in Namaka, serving the tourism and resort economy of Fiji's western corridor.

Principal office
Suva
Address
Level 1, 11 Renwick Road
Suva, Fiji Islands
P.O. Box 260, Suva
Telephone

+679 330 5538

Email

info@neelshivam.com.fj

Branch office
Nadi
Address
Airport Central Building
Namaka, Nadi
Fiji Islands
Serving

Foreign investors, hospitality operators and the resort economy of Fiji's western corridor.

Hours

Monday to Friday · By arrangement

National coverage · Through a network of city agents
Regional reach across the Fiji Islands through long-standing city-agent relationships — supporting client matters in centres beyond our Suva and Nadi offices.
Make an enquiry

Tell us what you're
working on.

A partner will respond within one business day. All enquiries are treated in strict confidence.

Email a partner +679 330 5538