Ex-Freehills recruit Penny Stevens has left Hall & Willcox after just one year.
Stevens, who is well known in the OH&S advisory space, said that the decision was driven by client conflict considerations. “Hall & Willcox are on the WorkSafe Victoria panel, which limited my opportunities to work at my full potential,” she told ALB.
Stevens and her team, which includes special counsel Nicole Fauvrelle, senior associate Kim Grady and lawyer Sam Jackson, have now joined the Middletons workplace relations and safety group. “Middletons offered me the opportunity to work at full potential and there is a greater synergy between their clients and my own,” Stevens said. Hall & Willcox managing partner Tony Macvean said WorkSafe Victoria had been a key client of the firm for many years. “In recent weeks, circumstances have arisen that have proven it to be difficult to run the OH&S practice given our commitments to WorkSafe,” he said in a statement.
Stevens said she was looking forward to working at Middletons for the “next 20 years” and that the situation at Hall & Willcox would not occur again as Middletons is not on any work cover panels. “They don’t do any work in that field, so there is not risk of this happening again,” she said. Head of Middletons workplace relations and safety group, Gerard Phillips, added that it was not in the firm's business plan to work in that insurance space with regards to work cover disputes.
Middletons had already made three other rounds of partner appointments in the workplace relations and safety group during past 12 months. Just two months ago the firm recruited two highly regarded Sydney-based partners from HWL Ebsworth while other new partners include Duncan Fletcher, formerly of Mallesons Stephen Jaques and Kathy Dalton from Herbert Geer. A third HWL Ebsworth partner, Bryan Belling, will join Middletons on 20 September.
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HWL Ebsworth partners make switch to Middletons 13 July 2010