I did it my way | Sparke Helmore
boardroom courtroom:
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The business of leading a law firm to
One of the country's most prestigious law firms, Sparke Helmore, is building on its 129-year history of service by focusing on delivering quality work from the best people in the industry.
BY JULIAN LEATHERDALE W
hile popular culture, particularly TV, loves to focus on the courtroom theatrics, office politics and colourful personalities of the legal profession, less attention is
paid to the fact that law firms are also businesses that must compete for market share and strategically plan for consolidation and growth. The story of Australian law firm Sparke Helmore
is one of remarkable growth, from its origins in Newcastle in 1882 to a fully integrated national firm with offices in Adelaide, Brisbane, Canberra, Melbourne, Newcastle, Perth, Sydney and the Upper Hunter, and with almost 600 staff including 52 partners, 56 senior counsel and 200 lawyers and clerks. Today, the firm is one of the country's largest and
most experienced providers of legal services to the insurance sector. In the 2011 Australasian Law Awards, Sparke Helmore won Insurance Law Firm of the Year. With more than 100 years' experience in representing
clients in the mining and resources industry, the firm boasts a comprehensive knowledge of the sector and has a network of specialist lawyers working out of offices
20 George www.stgeorge.com.au/george
located in Newcastle and Muswellbrook. More recently, the firm has developed a leading
reputation for servicing government at Commonwealth, State and Local government levels, and has earned prestigious appointments such as advising on the sale of Commonwealth shares in Telstra (T3), and acting for the government in the Cole (UN Oil-for-Food Programme) Inquiry. "We have a strong client-centric growth
strategy," says Jesse Webb, Sparke Helmore's National Managing Partner. "For example, we opened our offices in Canberra in 1996 and in Perth in 2000 in response to strong demand from the Commonwealth for our services in those locations." In the last decade, Sparke Helmore has also been
building capability and growing its reputation in other markets and areas of law. The firm's strategy is now focused around a few core industry sectors: financial services, insurance, government, construction, mining and manufacturing.
