News

Swaab revealed as the fastest grow­ing law firm in Aus­tralia 2021, an inter­view with Swaab’s Man­ag­ing part­ner, Mary Digiglio

In a fea­ture of The Aus­tralian ear­li­er this month, the find­ings of the 2021 legal part­ner­ship sur­vey, con­duct­ed by Eaton Strat­e­gy + Search, were pub­lished. The sur­vey revealed part­ner­ships of Australia’s top law firms grew 4.3 per cent over the last six months to 1 July 2021, while Swaab the Syd­ney based Mer­i­tas firm, expe­ri­enced the strongest growth of 42.7 per cent.

Swaab’s Man­ag­ing part­ner Mary Digiglio said, ​“the firm’s major growth had been in prop­er­ty, but no areas were subdued”.

Mary went onto say, ​“the fir­m’s growth in part­ner num­bers have been a direct result of the fir­m’s strat­e­gy. With increased demand from our clients and fore­cast­ed demand from our key indus­try sec­tors, it was appar­ent that we need­ed to fur­ther devel­op our domes­tic and inter­na­tion­al legal ser­vice offer­ings through an align­ment of organ­ic growth and tar­get­ed tal­ent acqui­si­tions that made strate­gic sense and felt good culturally.”

Recent part­ner appoint­ments include:

  • Julie Briscoe – Part­ner, Prop­er­ty and Com­mer­cial Law, spe­cialis­es in com­mer­cial and retail prop­er­ty law, while also hav­ing exten­sive expe­ri­ence in cor­po­rate and trust struc­tur­ing and finance transactions.
  • Tri­na Fran­cis – Part­ner, Fam­i­ly Law, spe­cial­is­ing in fam­i­ly law, lawyer-assist­ed medi­a­tion and litigation.
  • Roger Corn­forth – Part­ner, Prop­er­ty, Pri­vate Clients and Prop­er­ty Finance Law, spe­cialis­es in all aspects of com­mer­cial and retail prop­er­ty law, while also hav­ing exten­sive expe­ri­ence help­ing pri­vate clients with wills and estate planning.
  • Michael Tree­by – Part­ner, Prop­er­ty and Com­mer­cial Law, spe­cialis­es in com­mer­cial trans­ac­tions, mul­ti­juris­dic­tion­al deals, lease back arrange­ments and financ­ing transactions.

There are also two fur­ther part­ner appoint­ments which will be effec­tive in July 2021.

When asked what made Swaab so appeal­ing to lawyers in mar­ket? Mary said, ​“I firm­ly believe it’s our peo­ple and our cul­ture, hav­ing the right tal­ent makes all the dif­fer­ence. Our aim is to be a work­place not only enjoyed, but which inspires great work and per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al growth. I am proud to be lead­ing a firm with a strong focus on cul­ture, well­be­ing and client ser­vice. The com­bi­na­tion of this serves to enhance our abil­i­ty to deliv­er unri­valled val­ue for mon­ey and qual­i­ty of ser­vice with our hall­mark of Gen­eros­i­ty of Spir­it and com­mit­ment to liv­ing the Swaab Brand of Service.”

In other news