Legal support for a B Corp transition in New Zealand

It can suit both, but the best fit is usually a business that is seriously considering certification and wants legal help with the governance side of the process. Some clients already know they need constitutional changes, while others want to understand what legal work is likely before they commit further time internally. The service is broader than a single document review, so it is useful where you want advice on how the legal pieces fit together rather than only asking for one amendment in isolation.

A common issue is whether your existing constitution and governance settings properly reflect the stakeholder commitments expected as part of the transition. Businesses also need to think about director decision-making, how purpose language is framed, and whether internal documents line up with the public commitments the business wants to make. In practice, the legal work often involves more than inserting a few new clauses. It is about making sure the company documents and governance approach are coherent enough to support the transition process.

No. This service supports the legal side of the transition, particularly the governance and document changes that often need attention before or during certification steps. It does not mean Sprintlaw manages the whole certification process, completes every external submission, or controls the final assessment outcome. There are parts of the process that sit with B Lab and with your own internal operational work. We can help you get the legal foundation into better shape, but third-party decisions remain outside our control.

A template may not reflect your current company structure, existing governance documents, or the way decisions are actually made in the business. B Corp-related changes often need to fit with what is already in your constitution and with the practical governance position of the company. A generic amendment can miss inconsistencies or create drafting issues elsewhere in the document set. That is why businesses often seek legal review before adopting purpose-driven wording, especially where investors, multiple directors, or existing shareholder arrangements are involved.

Once the legal changes are completed, your business is usually in a better position to continue with the remaining certification steps, such as progressing internal assessment items and dealing with B Lab requirements outside the legal drafting itself. At that stage, some businesses simply move forward with their application, while others identify follow-on governance or policy work that they want reviewed separately. If further legal support is needed after the initial transition work, we can discuss that as a separate scope rather than bundling it into the original fixed-fee.

Just submit an enquiry via this page or click the 'get started' button on our website to submit an enquiry. After you've submitted an enquiry, one of our legal consultants will review your enquiry within 1 business day and get in touch to get a better idea of exactly what you are looking for.

Then your legal consultant will send through an email with a bit more information about the services you need, along with a fixed fee quote setting out costs, scope of the service and timing. Have a read through it, and if you're happy with the scope, you can accept and sign our engagement letter online - easy!

Once you've formally accepted, we'll connect you with a specialist lawyer and they will work with you to complete your project. They will contact you by email or phone if they need to get in touch.

Sprintlaw works on fixed-fee pricing wherever possible, so you can review the scope and cost before you decide whether to proceed. For the B Corp Transition service, pricing starts from $900.00.

After you enquire, a legal consultant will confirm what is included, the expected timing and whether any extra work is needed before you engage us.

We operate completely online, which means we can help you wherever you are in New Zealand. We have office spaces in Sydney, and in Melbourne, but our use of technology allows our team members to work remotely from around the world. Our legal team are mostly based in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth. We also have a London office for Sprintlaw UK.

Our legal team is made up of experienced lawyers, who are specialists in various areas of law and hold an Australian legal practising certificate. None of our Sprintlaw lawyers are New Zealand qualified lawyers and they do not currently hold a New Zealand practising certificate.

They provide legal services working remotely from Australia via our 'legal consultancy' model, through which (under section 6 and section 35 of the New Zealand Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006) our Australian legal team are permitted to provide legal services to New Zealand businesses provided they do not provide services in certain 'reserved' areas of law. You can read our FAQ page to learn a bit more about our 'legal consultancy' model.

Given the strong similarities between Australian and New Zealand law, and the areas of law in which we practice (being small business and startup law), we do not view the fact that our lawyers have not qualified in New Zealand as having any substantive impact on the quality of our service. We are committed to ensuring that we provide high quality, affordable legal services to all our New Zealand clients.

Our legal team have all trained at leading firms, but have left the traditional corporate law world to join us on our mission to create a new and better way of delivering legal services. They have specialist expertise in technology law, intellectual property law, contract drafting and review, corporate law and commercial law.