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

More AI Slop in the Fair Work Juris­dic­tion: The Fight Back

In two recent cas­es both the Fair Work Com­mis­sion (FWC) and Fed­er­al Cir­cuit and Fam­i­ly Court of Aus­tralia (FCF­CoA) have…

NSW Build­ing (Approvals and Prac­ti­tion­ers) Bill 2026 Pass­es Parliament

The Build­ing (Approvals and Prac­ti­tion­ers) Bill 2026 (the Bill) passed through Par­lia­ment on Tues­day after­noon 4 August 2026. The Bill is…

AI Slop v Fair Work Com­mis­sion: The Scourge Continues

For all the talk of how extra­or­di­nary and trans­for­ma­tive arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI) can sup­pos­ed­ly be, it con­tin­ues to be a scourge…

In the News

Michael Byrnes appeared on the Lawyers Week­ly Show pod­cast with Jerome Doraisamy released on 27 August 2026 to dis­cuss work­place law, social media use, and gen­er­a­tional attitudes

“Work­place law, social media use, and gen­er­a­tional atti­tudes” explores how social media, work­place rights, and chang­ing gen­er­a­tional expec­ta­tions are reshap­ing…

Michael Byrnes is quot­ed in the arti­cle, “‘A bad career deci­sion’: Inside the fall­out from Tik­Tok grad­u­ate fir­ing” pub­lished in Lawyers Week­ly on 26 August 2026

Pro­fes­sion­al con­se­quences faced by an Aus­tralian grad­u­ate lawyer whose Tik­Tok activ­i­ty led to dis­missal, spark­ing indus­try-wide debate about social media use.Michael…

Michael Byrnes is quot­ed in the arti­cle, Busi­ness­es demand new pow­ers after worker’s hope­less’ AI claim costs employ­er”, pub­lished in the Aus­tralian on 23 August 2026

Busi­ness­es want new pow­ers because AI-assist­ed employ­ee claims are increas­ing the num­ber of weak or inac­cu­rate work­place com­plaints, forc­ing employ­ers…