Industry Event

A team of 26 partners and staff from Pinsent Masons Australia recently kicked off the firm’s ongoing partnership with the Clontarf Foundation with a visit to Alice Springs. The team met with 15 Aboriginal students and mentors participating in the Foundation’s program in Central Australia, presenting them with a donation to help the Foundation improve the education, discipline, life skills, self-esteem and employment prospects of young Aboriginal men. The Pinsent Masons team spent two days with the students and mentors on an active weekend involving outback hiking, a traditional smoking ceremony and a Yeperenye dance, as well as sleeping under the stars.

To mark International Women's Day on Tuesday 8 March, the DLA Piper Sydney office welcomed Karen Willis OAM, Executive Officer of Rape & Domestic Violence Services Australia, and Dixie Link-Gordon, sexual assault and domestic violence awareness advocate and community educator.

Holding Redlich and Adviceline Injury Lawyers were very pleased to support Frocktober – a campaign organised by the Ovarian Cancer Research Foundation that ran throughout the month of October to raise awareness and funds for research into ovarian cancer. As part of the fun challenge, Frocktober participants wore a colourful dress every day of the month (or colourful socks and ties for men). Through concerted fundraising efforts, which included morning teas, after work drinks functions and the raffling of four designer dresses (kindly donated by Elk, Grace, 400 Co and Cue) to staff at the firm, a total of $7754 was raised to help in the fight against ovarian cancer.

On October 16, lawyers from Mills Oakley participated in a charity abseil in support of the Sir David Martin Foundation. The lawyers, all of whom were new to abseiling and confessed to having a fear of heights, nonetheless took the plunge from a 33 storey building in the Sydney CBD. The team managed to raise over $6600 for the Foundation and its signature initiative, the Triple Care Farm for youth with substance use disorders and mental health issues.

Arnold Bloch Leibler (ABL) in Melbourne hosted the launch of the 2015 Yarra Valley Arts / Yering Station Sculpture Exhibition & Awards. The firm has supported this important event on the Australian art calendar for 11 years. The Sculpture Exhibition & Awards provide a platform to showcase work by both established and emerging artists from all around Australia. The event generates financial benefits for the talented artists, the Yarra Valley community generally and leukaemia research. As well as being the principal sponsor of the event, ABL displays a number of sculptures (available for purchase) in its Melbourne offices in conjunction with the main exhibition at Yering Station winery.

A global team of 40 partners and staff from DLA Piper have successfully completed a trek through the Simien mountains in Ethiopia for UNICEF. The team began its journey in Addis Ababa on 2 October and then moved to Gonder, a small city at the foot of the Simien mountains, before embarking on the four-day trek. They walked for up to ten hours a day and covered close to 7000 metres to reach the summit at Mount Bwahit standing at 4,430m above sea level.

Baker & McKenzie recently hosted Group Captain Catherine McGregor AM, Australia's most prominent transgender woman, speaking about her life in and outside of the military. Catherine is a speech writer and strategic adviser to the Chief of the Air Force. Her career in the Australian Regular Army spans 40 years, during which she has held a variety of regimental and staff appointments. She is also a published author and well-known political and cricket commentator.

For the third consecutive year, global law firm K&L Gates has carried out its annual Global Day of Service. The event is a week-long volunteer effort by its partners and staff focused on serving more than 70 charitable organisations in cities and regions across five continents in which the firm has offices. Partners and staff from each of the firm’s offices worldwide volunteer around the theme of “Caring for our global neighbourhood: one world, one mission.” K&L Gates' teams in Australia assisted a number of charities including: the Ronald McDonald House Charities (Melbourne); The Aboriginal Literacy Foundation (Melbourne), Pioneer Clubhouse (Sydney), Manna Inc (Perth), Red Cross (Brisbane) and Brisbane Youth Services (Brisbane).

K&L Gates' Perth office recently hosted a high-profile line up of inspiring leaders at a special women's networking morning tea. The list included former Governor-General of Australia the Honourable Quentin Bryce AD CVO; former UN Assistant Secretary General Ambassador Gertrude Mongella; Tanzanian Goodwill Ambassador for Tourism in Australia Dr Casta Tungaraza; and former Senior Vice-President of Hewlett Packard, Diana Bell.