Our Firm
Delivering the best possible results for our clients relies on a real sense of what matters. Technical expertise, resources and commitment are only part of the story.
We believe that even more important is the ability to make the benefits of these strengths real for our clients, and that depends on understanding what matters to them.
Overview
Freehills is an Australian-based international law firm. We back up our commitment to providing innovative, commercial legal advice to clients around the world, with the resources and expertise of around 1000 lawyers, including more than 200 partners across offices in Australia and South-East Asia.
Our solid track record means you can be confident in our ability to deliver first class commercial results for your business. This confidence is demonstrated by the quality of our client base. We act for more than 75 per cent of Australia’s top 100-listed companies. We undertake high-level legal work for leading corporations on every continent across the globe. These companies are involved in some of the largest and most complex commercial transactions being undertaken. Our ability to provide clients with legal, commercial and strategic solutions is built on vast experience and knowledge of local markets, and a keen understanding of the commercial context in which your business operates.
Depth and breadth
We have developed a practice with a depth of talent in a range of areas, together with an approach to client relationships than ensures the most appropriate team is matched to our clients’ unique challenges. We maintain our reputation as one of Australia’s leading international law firms across key areas of practice:
- banking and finance
- competition and market regulation
- communications and technology
- corporate
- employee relations
- energy and resources
- financial services
- infrastructure projects
- intellectual property
- litigation and dispute resolution
- property and development, and
- taxation.
We understand that sharing knowledge and technological resources with our clients leads to improved strategic outcomes. We use a host of technology solutions for clients, including eDiscovery, and we regularly publish relevant information on significant legal developments on this website, where background profiles of our people and details of our experience in more than 100 areas of law can also be found.
Leadership
Freehills is governed by a national board consisting of seven partners, including our Chief Executive Officer, Gavin Bell. Garry Hounsell and Dr Helen Nugent AO are our external board members. The board’s primary function is to strategically develop and grow the firm.
The executive management team is led by our chief executive officer/managing partner. Two managing partners work alongside the chief executive officer in support roles. One partner focuses on the firm’s people and practice groups, and the other partner focuses on our clients and business growth. The chief financial officer/chief operating officer’s role in the management team involves the financial planning and reporting of the firm combined with systems management. Another integral member of the management team is the general counsel who is also Freehills’ chief risk officer. The core focus of this role is to ensure the firm addresses risk issues in a serious and systematic manner.
Our heads of office in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Brisbane play an essential role in the smooth running of our local offices. Each head ensures that we deliver on our service commitments to clients in that region.
Each of our practice groups has a practice group head who is a leader in their chosen field with the proven ability to ensure exceptional performance across their group. Practice area leaders within those groups focus on individual areas of specialisation across a vast range of commercial law, outlined in further detail in the Expertise area of our website.