Q&A: Rob Moore on work/life balance and who he'd have to dinner

Rob Moore and his son Tobi. Photo / Supplied

Rob Moore is a Whanganui lawyer at Moore Law, and has helped many locals on their journey to purchasing their first home among other things. He answers 10 questions from Emma Bernard.

What's the most satisfying part of your job?

Definitely helping first home buyers. 100 per cent. It's just a really positive time for people.

When people come in they usually don't know anything about it, so it's pretty cool to say to people hey, I've got this. Just chill out, listen to me and we'll be able to roll it. That's a cool feeling. On average I would see around five first-home buyers a week.

Heaps of first home buyers have also never been to see a lawyer before. So quite often they come in and don't know how it's going to go or what to expect, but I'm pretty casual as far as lawyers are concerned. So it's nice to have that interaction with people.

What's one of the misconceptions about being a lawyer?

I think people often think the law is intrinsically adversarial. But actually, with a lot of law, it's about bringing two minds together.

For example, this person wants to buy a house, this person wants to sell a house. My job is not to create a fight between them, it's to make the whole thing happen.

People just watch a lot of Boston Legal or something. The perception is lawyers are always fighting each other but in reality more often than not we're working with each other to try get things to work.

What's your favourite thing about Whanganui?

I love the community. Everywhere you go and everything you do there's someone you either know or have a connection with.

I have a four-year-old son and I take him to the Splash Centre, Porridge Watson and other places like that. You always end up seeing people you know, it's such a lovely small community vibe.

How do you see Whanganui changing in the next 50 years?

We're very central and we seem to be doing well productively, so I see Whanganui continuing to grow.

I just hope we retain our identity and we don't become like a Nelson, not that there's anything wrong with Nelson. But it would be a shame if a whole lot of people came in just to buy up houses and lose the traditional community.

What advice would you give your 15-year-old self?

Just relax. Enjoy the ride and experience as much as you can.

I think as well if you put positive energy into something you enjoy, you'll be successful at it over time.

I didn't particularly enjoy school, I enjoyed playing sports but I didn't have a lot of direction in terms of my future goals.

Like becoming a lawyer would have just been a pipe dream. But then you get your degree and identify the clients you like working with and if you do a good job for them you start to build up quite a good little business.

Who are three people you'd take to dinner?

Well, it would be pretty cool to sit down with Jesus Christ just to bust a yarn. I'd be really interested to know if he would think that Christianity is actually what he wanted.

Jesus seems real chill to me. That would definitely be one person.

My paternal grandfather would be another because he died three months before I was born.

I'd also be quite interested to sit down with Stevie Wonder actually. My boy is blind in exactly the same way as Stevie Wonder, and he's really into music. So it would just be really interesting to talk to him about his journey.

Did you always want to be a lawyer?

Nah, quite the opposite. I didn't really have any desire to be a lawyer until I was in my late 20s.

My dad owned Moore Law in Whanganui, which was obviously a handy start.

Law is a cool industry because it's so broad. There's kind of space for everyone in it, so you can basically roll that into whatever your niche is.

I definitely found my niche was more in the commercial and property side of things.

So what were you doing before being involved with law?

I worked in social services for a long time and when I originally started law I wanted to move into social services and do family law, but then I ended up being way more drawn to commercial law.

I used to do a lot of youth mentoring and rehabilitative stuff down in Wellington too before I moved back to Whanganui.

To start with I did an educational policy degree and I really enjoyed that, but you kind of get to a point where you've either got to go into the policy side of things or you get too old to do the more front-facing stuff.

So I thought if I'm going to do the policy side, I may as well go into the legal side of it, which was a little bit more interesting for me.

Then as things moved on I just sort of moved over to the commercial side.

What's the best trip you've ever been on?

I spent nine months in the states in 2008, and that was really cool. We spent a lot of time in smaller communities like Montana and Colorado.

We spent three months housesitting in Victor, Montana, volunteering at the local school and just getting into the community there. It was a tiny little place, with around 500 people living there at the time.

People's perceptions of America are really mixed up with American foreign policy.

Americans are generally lovely people, just not so much the government sometimes.

What's something you want to do in the next five years?

Definitely find a better work-life balance so I can spend more time with my son, and just really make sure his childhood doesn't just pass me by.

It's incredibly easy to just be always on the phone or taking phone calls. Even to be there but not be fully there in your mind is something I've worked really hard on that in the last year.