Our Team

John Graves

Consultant
Cor­po­rate

I am an accred­it­ed spe­cial­ist in Busi­ness Law and Prop­er­ty Law prov­ing a broad range of cor­po­rate, com­mer­cial and prop­er­ty legal ser­vices to indus­tries includ­ing infor­ma­tion tech­nol­o­gy and oth­er tech­nol­o­gy based busi­ness­es, prop­er­ty devel­op­ers, trans­port and tourism oper­a­tors, char­i­ties, not for prof­its and church­es as well as pri­vate clients and their ser­vice providers (includ­ing accoun­tants and finan­cial planners).

I have exten­sive Board­room expe­ri­ence hav­ing sat on a num­ber of com­pa­ny boards dur­ing my career includ­ing a hos­pi­tal, a finan­cial insti­tu­tion, a prop­er­ty devel­op­er, a med­ical research foun­da­tion and a num­ber of char­i­ta­ble and com­mu­ni­ty boards.

I am pas­sion­ate about giv­ing back to the com­mu­ni­ty and the legal pro­fes­sion which is evi­denced by my long tenure as the Chair­man of the Busi­ness Law Spe­cial­ist Accred­i­ta­tion Exam­i­na­tion Com­mit­tee of the Law Soci­ety of New South Wales.

Expe­ri­ence

With a career invest­ed in the law, I have exten­sive expe­ri­ence in:

  • Sale and pur­chase of indus­tri­al and com­mer­cial busi­ness­es by asset and share sale
  • Work­ing with clients to resolve com­plex share­hold­er disputes
  • Intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty advice for a broad range of com­mer­cial clients
  • Gen­er­al cor­po­rate, com­mer­cial and busi­ness advice
  • Suc­ces­sion plan­ning, restruc­tur­ing and fund­ing advice for cor­po­rate and fam­i­ly group of companies
  • Nego­ti­at­ing and suc­cess­ful­ly resolv­ing com­plex inter-com­pa­ny guar­an­tee dispute
  • Nego­ti­at­ing, draft­ing and set­tling of com­plex hard­ware, soft­ware devel­op­ment and infor­ma­tion tech­nol­o­gy contracts
  • Advis­ing busi­ness of their intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty rights and draft­ing asso­ci­at­ed doc­u­men­ta­tion and act­ing in enforce­ment proceedings
  • Com­plex prop­er­ty devel­op­ment includ­ing act­ing for indi­vid­ual devel­op­ers and con­sor­tiums of investors 

Sale and pur­chase of rur­al land and com­mer­cial prop­er­ty includ­ing Syd­ney CBD towers

Expertise

  • Corporate Law
  • Business Law
  • Property Law
  • Commercial Law

Roles, memberships and education

  • Extensive law firm management experience
  • Chairman of the Examination Committee for Business Law Specialist Accreditation for the Law Society of New South Wales
  • Director of the corporation holding the assets of the Uniting Church in Australia
  • Member of the Statutory Corporation for the Uniting Church in New South Wales, The Uniting Church in Australia Property Trust (NSW)
  • Honorary lawyer for the Australian Tourism Export Council Limited
  • Member of the Law Society of NSW
  • Member of Skål International Sydney North (Tourism industry group)
  • Member of Australian Tourism Export Council Limited
  • University of New South Wales, Sydney – Bachelor of Commerce (Accounting, Finance and Systems)
  • University of New South Wales, Sydney – Bachelor of Laws