We pro­vide per­soan­lised and prac­ti­cal legal advise for clients look­ing at real estate and devel­op­ment invest­ments, busi­ness oppor­tu­ni­ties, wealth pro­tec­tion, estate plan­ning, and if the need aris­es, lit­i­ga­tion and fam­i­ly law advice. 

Today’s eco­nom­ic land­scape and out­look is more chal­leng­ing than ever, with an eco­nom­ic slow­down, geopo­lit­i­cal uncer­tain­ties, mar­ket volatil­i­ty, inter­gen­er­a­tional wealth trans­fer, cyber­se­cu­ri­ty threats and a fierce­ly com­pet­i­tive mar­ket plac­ing pres­sure on indi­vid­u­als, investors, entre­pre­neurs, fam­i­lies and busi­ness­es alike.

The com­plex­i­ty of indi­vid­ual finan­cial posi­tions means that pri­vate clients require spe­cialised expe­ri­ence, dis­cre­tion and a trust­ed legal experts with deep exper­tise and experience. 

Our team pro­vides advice to investors, high net worth indi­vid­u­als, fam­i­ly offices, and close­ly-held busi­ness­es, on a range of mat­ters includ­ing invest­ment struc­tur­ing and due dili­gence, real estate and prop­er­ty issues, risk man­age­ment, fam­i­ly gov­er­nance, dis­putes, estate plan­ning, busi­ness suc­ces­sion plan­ning, char­i­ta­ble giv­ing and litigation.

We are par­tic­u­lar­ly mind­ful of the often emo­tion­al nature of deal­ing with a client’s per­son­al affairs and are skilled at nav­i­gat­ing all rel­e­vant issues with sen­si­tiv­i­ty to achieve the desired and appro­pri­ate outcomes.

Use­ful links:

No mat­ter how rou­tine or com­plex the busi­ness issues you face, Mer­i­tas’ net­work of law firms is with you every step of the way. Mar­ket-lead­ing firms offer a full range of legal ser­vices, which enable you to do busi­ness any­where. Wise coun­sel and prac­ti­cal solu­tions are just a phone call or e‑mail away. Dis­cov­er the breadth and depth of the prac­tice and indus­try sec­tor capa­bil­i­ties avail­able to you through Meritas.

Publications

Putting the West­pac Work­ing From Home Case in Perspective

Can employ­ees real­ly work from home if they want to? In a recent Fair Work case an employ­ee won the right to…

The risk of builder insol­ven­cy mid way through a con­struc­tion project is real (and will prob­a­bly be expensive)

Intro­duc­tionThis arti­cle pro­vides guid­ance to those under­tak­ing con­struc­tion works and iden­ti­fies a num­ber of con­tract pro­vi­sions which, if includ­ed in the…

Cross-Com­pa­ny Secu­ri­ty and Liq­uida­tor Chal­lenges: Full Fed­er­al Court Restores Cer­tain­ty in CEG Direct Secu­ri­ties v Coop­er [2025] FCAFC 47

A sig­nif­i­cant deci­sion from the Full Fed­er­al Court has clar­i­fied the lim­its of liq­uida­tors’ pow­ers to unwind cross-com­pa­ny secu­ri­ty grant­ed…

In the News

What the West­pac flex­i­ble work rul­ing real­ly means for employers

Michael Byrnes’ arti­cle ​“What the West­pac flex­i­ble work rul­ing real­ly means for employ­ers”, was pub­lished on HRM Online on 2…

Michael Byrnes dis­cuss­es the West­pac WFH case on 2SM with Tim Webster

Michael Byrnes appeared on Break­fast with Tim Web­ster on 2SM on 27 Octo­ber 2025 to dis­cuss the West­pac Work from…

Michael Byrnes is quot­ed in the arti­cle, What hap­pens when an employ­ee runs out of sick leave?”, pub­lished in HRM Online on 21 Octo­ber 2025

Michael Byrnes is quot­ed in the arti­cle, ​“What hap­pens when an employ­ee runs out of sick leave?”, pub­lished in HRM…