Law Squared Elevates In-House Expertise with Strategic Senior Hires
In what remains a tight market, Law Squared has bucked the legal talent trend by onboarding a multitude of senior legal professionals during the first month of the new financial year. Dispersed across the firm’s Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane offices, these appointments reinforce the firm’s reputation as an 'in-house specialist', with a hiring strategy focused on attracting legal talent directly from senior in-house roles, including General Counsel (GC) positions.
Members of the Law Squared as a Service (LSaaS) team gather in Melbourne during August 2024 for the inaugural LSaaS Summit, L - R: Rohan Bilimoria, Annika Childs, Sean Sim, Tess Hauser, Connor Gentile, Joanna Brand, Maria Walsh, Georgie Gane, Hannah Kane.
Among the firm’s new starters from in-house roles are:
Joanna Brand - Non-Executive Director of Powerlink Queensland and former General Counsel and Company Secretary.
Hannah Kane - Formerly a Corporate Lawyer at Australian Red Cross Lifeblood.
Tess Hauser - Formerly Regional Head of Legal and Company Secretary at Pepperstone.
Sean Sim - Formerly Legal Counsel at VicForests.
The firm has also added to its Disputes + Litigation practice with the appointment of Gerard Maxted who joins from Nicholas Ryan Lawyers.
Law Squared Founder and Director, Demetrio Zema, says the strategic hiring round is a significant boost to the firm’s promise to bridge the gap between legal expertise and commercial impact. "We’ve invested in hiring experienced in-house lawyers who bring strong commercial acumen, ensuring we provide the actionable, pragmatic, and legal insights needed to support business stakeholders," explains Demetrio.
Demetrio considers the hiring round not just as a boost to resources and capability, but as validation of the firm’s model and ethos, explaining: “It’s rare for in-house lawyers to return to private practice. As a profession, we ought to be more alarmed by the talent drain that’s perpetuated by toxic ways of working. We’re proud to upend this trend and entice some exceptional legal talent back to private practice with our distinctive employee value proposition and commitment to doing law differently.”
From a client perspective, the new hires align closely with Law Squared’s core client base which is primarily comprised of large corporate, not-for-profit and multinational in-house legal teams. While the new team members will also support the firm’s Corporate + Commercial and Energy + Infrastructure clients with ad hoc and project-based matters, all will play key roles in servicing the firm’s Law Squared as a Service (LSaaS) engagements.
A scalable, monthly fixed-cost alternative to conventional legal secondee or contractor models, the LSaaS model was designed specifically for in-house teams to help manage the overflow of legal work, cover short or long-term resourcing gaps, access specialist legal skills, and/or deliver internal or external projects.
Rising demand for the unique service offering correlates with a persistent shortage of legal candidates, increasing expectations on the function, headcount freezes and growing awareness of psychosocial hazards: “Recruitment is unlikely to be a quick or practical fix,” says Demetrio. “GCs are looking for innovative, cost effective ways to access legal support during peak periods or to solve short- term resourcing gaps, without sacrificing impact, or risking burnout in their team.”
Among those new starters making an immediate impact is Joanna Brand, who brings over 25 years of legal and governance experience, including GC and Company Secretary roles with Nasdaq-listed Iris Energy, ME Bank, ASX-listed Billabong International, and Epic Energy, and serving for Qantas as Chief Legal Counsel of Jetstar Airways and for Senex Energy as Acting General Counsel. She has also been involved in projects including PNG LNG and QCLNG.
On her appointment, Joanna commented: "In-house expectations, ways of working, and priorities are totally different from private practice. Most conventional external legal providers don’t truly understand that, let alone have the specialist in-house skills to deliver. As an experienced former GC, I can see enormous value for in-house legal teams in being able to access the skills and experience of a dedicated team of in-house specialists at Law Squared, rather than relying on a single secondee or contractor, while at the same time having total cost certainty.”
Joanna and the other new starters join other recent 'in-house specialist' hires, including LSaaS Coordinator Georgie Gane who was formerly General Counsel and Company Secretary at Pepperstone, and Global Community Lead, Rohan Bilimoria, formerly with Lawyers on Demand and who is also the legal entrepreneur behind the global in-house legal community, Law Ninjas.
To speak to a member of the Corporate + Commercial team about whether LSaaS might be a good fit for your organisation, please reach out to Georgie Gane via [email protected].
For media enquiries, please reach out to Lisa Malone, Marketing + Communications, via [email protected]