Lawyers Week­ly | Aussies help­ing lead one of world’s largest law firm groups

Mer­i­tas is the most estab­lished inde­pen­dent law firm group in the world and is made up of 183 dif­fer­ent firms across 254 mar­kets with almost nine thou­sand lawyers.

The group was estab­lished in 1990 and is led by an elect­ed 21-mem­ber board and this year an Aus­tralian, Ben­nett & Philp Direc­tor Andrew Lam­bros was named as the first rep­re­sen­ta­tive for a decade to come from the Aus­tralasian region.

Fur­ther, two Aus­tralians Swaab Part­ner James Skel­ton and DMAW Lawyers Senior Asso­ciate, Nicole Mead, were appoint­ed to the 16-mem­ber Emerg­ing Lead­ers Advi­so­ry Board as sec­re­tary and board mem­ber respectively. 

Swaab’s Man­ag­ing Part­ner, Mary Digiglio, also con­tin­ues her glob­al roles being Chair of the ​“Well Being In The Law” ini­tia­tive and on the Lead­er­ship Coun­cil for the Women’s Lead­er­ship Congress. 

In Aus­trala­sia, Mer­i­tas is made up of Swaab (Syd­ney), Madg­wicks (Mel­bourne), Ben­nett & Philp (Bris­bane), DMAW Lawyers (Ade­laide), Williams & Hugh­es (Perth) and Martel­li McK­egg (Auck­land).

Mr Lam­bros said he is hon­oured to be elect­ed to the board, not only as a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of Aus­tralia, but also to help dri­ve Mer­i­tas as a brand and net­work for all its mem­ber firms.

“Aus­tralia and New Zealand are glob­al­ly cut­ting edge in many areas of law firm man­age­ment and busi­ness devel­op­ment. I would expect more Aus­tralians will join the lead­er­ship team in the future.” 

Mr Skel­ton said that par­tic­i­pat­ing in the Mer­i­tas Emerg­ing Lead­ers Advi­so­ry Board had helped him devel­op as a leader. ​“The con­nec­tions made and skills learnt over the last few years have been impor­tant to my career pro­gres­sion at Swaab and in the law gen­er­al­ly,” he said. ​“As a for­mer coun­cil­lor of the Law Soci­ety of NSW I have been active in legal lead­er­ship before, but this takes it onto the inter­na­tion­al stage.”

Like­wise, fel­low Mer­i­tas Emerg­ing Lead­ers board mem­ber, Nicole Mead said she hoped to make a sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tion to Mer­i­tas in the future. ​“It’s pleas­ing that an Ade­laide-based lawyer such as myself can make a dif­fer­ence to the man­age­ment and suc­cess of law firms across the world and show that Aussie firms can mix it with the best in the US, Europe, and Asia,” she said. 

About Mer­i­tas

Mer­i­tas is a glob­al alliance of inde­pen­dent, mar­ket-lead­ing law firms that pro­vides legal ser­vices to com­pa­nies look­ing to effec­tive­ly cap­ture oppor­tu­ni­ties and solve issues any­where in the world. Clients ben­e­fit from local knowl­edge, col­lec­tive strength, and new effi­cien­cies when they work with Mer­i­tas law firms. The per­son­al atten­tion and care they expe­ri­ence is part of Mer­i­tas’ indus­try-first com­mit­ment to the utmost in qual­i­ty of ser­vice and putting client pri­or­i­ties above all else. 

Found­ed in 1990, Mer­i­tas has mem­ber firms in 254 mar­kets world­wide with near­ly 9,000 ded­i­cat­ed, col­lab­o­ra­tive lawyers. 

To locate a Mer­i­tas resource for a spe­cif­ic need or in a cer­tain mar­ket, vis­it Mer​i​tas​.org.

The arti­cle was pub­lished on Lawyers Week­ly 29 June 23 refer link