Clifford Chance’s Australian operations have finished the first year ahead of expectations according to managing partner Mark Pistilli.
“The Australian practice has met global averages in terms of profit,” he told ALB. “When you think about what we have had to do in one year…I think our partners offshore are happy.” As a result of being financially integrated partners of the Australian operations, which now total 15, the Australian practice will take home the same amount of money as their overseas counterparts. Financial figures for the group will be officially released in July for the year ended 30 April 2012. Profit per partner for equity partners at the firm was £1.05 million last year; approximately 70 percent of the firm’s partners are in this group.
Having bedded down the operations, integrated the two Australian offices and added a finance practice Pistilli told ALB that the second year of the firm will be focused on implementing a growth and expansion strategy across Perth and Sydney. “Between launch date and three to five years we would like to see ourselves as a 35 partner and 100 lawyer firm,” he said. “We are now in the phase of identifying people who we think will help us to do that, not just partners, but lawyers at all levels.”
One the biggest changes for the two boutiques that formed the Clifford Chance’s Australian operations is the addition of graduates. “As boutiques we did not take on graduates, we could not provide them with the breadth of training,” said Pistilli. “We now have the size and structure to take on graduates and we took on six graduates this year.”
A lot of the graduates’ formal training is taking place in Asia in addition to them undertaking one of their rotations in an Asia Clifford Chance office. “What we are trying to achieve here is to create Asian Pacific lawyers who understand how laws work across more than one jurisdiction,” added Pistilli. The firm is preparing to take on another six graduates next year as well.
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