Litigation Rising Stars

If not for a “sliding doors moment” experienced soon after graduating university, Slater and Gordon class action practice group leader Andrew Paul could have ended up on a very different career path.

With roots in middle-class Canberra, Adero Law’s managing director Rory Markham takes pride in his role reinvigorating the industrial relations class action and putting pressure on companies to pay their staff on time and in full.

A part-time gig while at university provided the inspiration for Phi Finney McDonald director Odette McDonald’s impressive career, marked by groundbreaking cases and big wins for mum and dad investors in class actions. 

For intellectual property barrister David Larish, one of the most pivotal moments in his career had nothing to do with working on a case.

The “hustle and bustle” of defending companies in complex litigation does not faze Colin Biggers & Paisley’s Adrian Konstantinidis, so when the COVID-19 pandemic struck on the eve of one of the most complicated series of cases in Australia, he and his firm were ready.

Johnson Winter & Slattery senior associate Felicity Karageorge first discovered she wanted a career in the law from an unlikely source: daytime television.

Juggling a promising legal career and being the mother of two small children, King & Wood Mallesons’ Kione Johnson, who was the lead senior associate for dam operator Seqwater in the complex Queensland floods class action, revels in the “constant state of chaos” of her daily routine.

Unlike many successful litigation partners, Arnold Bloch Leibler partner Elyse Hilton wanted to be “anything but a lawyer” when she was in high school.

King & Wood Mallesons senior associate Luke Hawthorne lives to roll up his sleeves and delve into the “weird and wonderful” technologies behind the patent cases he works on.

For Johnson Winter & Slattery senior associate Sara Gaertner, being a lawyer working on high-stakes litigation wasn’t always on the cards. She was working at an accounting firm when she decided to make the career switch. She hasn’t looked back since.