Gilbert + Tobin is set to increase its market-leading position across a number of key practice groups with the announcement of six new partner promotions and four special counsel, effective 1 July 2019.
The new partners and special counsel build on G+T’s reputation for advising clients on their most significant corporate transactions and disputes across core practice areas including Disputes + Investigations, Corporate Advisory, Competition, Consumer + Market Regulation, Technology + Digital, Energy + Resources, Real Estate and Intellectual Property.
The firm is delighted to welcome its newly promoted partners:
Rebecca Dunn. Rebecca specialises in intellectual property litigation and technology disputes. Rebecca also has a strong social media, privacy, data protection and defamation practice.
Melissa Fai. Melissa focuses on complex commercial and technology transactions, including IT transformation projects, outsourcings, strategic supply and services arrangements. Melissa also has expertise in data and privacy, advising clients on the privacy regime and the use of technology and data to meet legislative and business requirement.
Philippa Hofbrucker. Philippa is a disputes and investigations specialist with extensive experience advising clients in both Australia and the UK, including leading retail and investment banks, banking executives, prosecuting authorities, professional services firms and resources companies. She has particular expertise in financial services clients and matters, which includes a focus on regulation and compliance advice.
Tim Kennedy. Tim specialises in advising clients on projects and transactions in the energy and resources sector, focussing on power, renewables and oil & gas. He has extensive experience acting for major companies and government clients on project development, M&A transactions, joint ventures and offtake agreements.
Kevin Ko. Kevin advises on strategic mergers and acquisitions and corporate transactions. He specialises in public takeovers (friendly and hostile), schemes of arrangement, private M&A deals, equity capital markets transactions and general corporate and securities law matters of all sizes. Kevin has had leading roles on some of the largest, most complex and novel transactions in the Australian market.
Matt Mackenzie. Matt advises clients in relation to complex, commercially significant disputes, litigation and regulatory enforcement actions. He has been extensively involved in a wide range of large scale, high-profile proceedings, including class actions, and critical and sensitive regulatory matters.
The firm’s new special counsel include Disputes + Investigations lawyers Edward Martin and Patrick Tydde, Real Estate + Projects lawyer Joanne Bayes as well as Competition, Consumer + Market Regulation lawyer Liana Witt.
Managing Partner Danny Gilbert said the appointments underpin G+T’s exciting future growth ambitions and confidence in its ability to develop diverse and leading talent in the market.
"These are very important achievements that are a testament to their skills as lawyers, to their commitment to G+T and their plans for contributing to our future success. It's extremely reassuring to see the quality of the talent that continues to emerge at our firm setting us up so powerfully for the future. These promotions are a recognition of the big contribution they continue to make to the firm and their individual ability to deliver outstanding results for our clients.
"It’s also important to note that in both partner and special counsel promotions, we have an even split of male and female. This is positive move towards achieving our gender diversity target of female representation in our partnership of 40% by 2023. I am also thrilled to see our focus on supporting women at senior levels of our organisation reflected strongly in this group of promotions. We have talented people coming through our ranks who are rewarded on performance and we provide a supportive and flexible working environment to enable our people to tailor their own career pathways. Organic growth is also evident with Rebecca, Melissa and Matt having risen through the G+T ranks after joining us as initially as summer clerks.
"I have no doubt they will all play an integral role in the future success of the firm as we consolidate our market-leading position in key sectors and boost our capability in growing specialist practice areas."
Gilbert + Tobin has been named Law Firm of the Year in 2019 at the Australasian Law Awards and Most Innovative Law Firm in Asia Pacific at the 2019 Financial Times Asia-Pacific Innovative Lawyers Awards.