Press Release Swaab’s James Skel­ton Appoint­ed Chair of Glob­al Emerg­ing Lead­ers Advi­so­ry Board at Mer­i­tas AGM in Mex­i­co City

In this piv­otal lead­er­ship role, James will guide ini­tia­tives to strength­en rela­tion­ships among Emerg­ing Lead­ers across Mer­i­tas’ 175 glob­al mem­ber firms and enhance resources that sup­port a net­work of more than 9,000 lawyers worldwide.

James joins the lead­er­ship team alongside:

• Mol­ly Cam­po­long – Chair-Elect (Robin­son Gray, Colum­bia, South Car­oli­na, USA)
• Jem­ma For­rest – Sec­re­tary (Ander­son Strath­ern, Glas­gow, Unit­ed King­dom: Scotland)

With a strong foun­da­tion in ELAB lead­er­ship since 2023, James has played a key role in advanc­ing Emerg­ing Lead­ers ini­tia­tives glob­al­ly and sup­port­ing young lawyers across Aus­tralia and New Zealand. He also serves on the lead­er­ship team of the Mer­i­tas Glob­al Intel­lec­tu­al Prop­er­ty group.

Reflect­ing on his appoint­ment, James stat­ed, ​“I am proud to take on this role with­in Mer­i­tas and look for­ward to con­tin­u­ing efforts to fos­ter the devel­op­ment of emerg­ing lead­ers with­in the glob­al net­work. I would like to thank Swaab Man­ag­ing Part­ner, Mary Digiglio and the Swaab part­ner­ship for their long­stand­ing sup­port of my involve­ment in Mer­i­tas and for enabling me to fur­ther strength­en Swaab’s posi­tion as a key mem­ber with­in the network.”

He fur­ther expressed appre­ci­a­tion to Mer­i­tas Chair Luca Cit­ton (Boughton Law, Van­cou­ver, Cana­da) and the Mer­i­tas Board for their com­mit­ment to ELAB’s ini­tia­tives, and extend­ed grat­i­tude to out­go­ing Chair Char­lotte Whit­worth (Howard Kennedy LLP, Lon­don, Unit­ed King­dom: Eng­land and Wales) for her con­tri­bu­tions in ele­vat­ing ELAB’s vis­i­bil­i­ty and programs.

Swaab, the exclu­sive New South Wales mem­ber of Mer­i­tas, remains a key play­er in the inter­na­tion­al legal net­work, active­ly strength­en­ing glob­al col­lab­o­ra­tion and pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment. This com­mit­ment is fur­ther rein­forced by James’ appoint­ment as Chair of the Glob­al Emerg­ing Lead­ers Advi­so­ry Board and Mary Digiglio’s ongo­ing role as a mem­ber of the Mer­i­tas Women’s Lead­er­ship Coun­cil since 2021.

About Mer­i­tas

Mer­i­tas is a lead­ing glob­al alliance of inde­pen­dent law firms, offer­ing high-qual­i­ty legal exper­tise across diverse indus­tries and juris­dic­tions. With more than 180 firms world­wide, Mer­i­tas pro­vides seam­less cross-bor­der legal sup­port for busi­ness­es and clients.