MinterEllison

LIFE AT A GLOBAL LAW FIRM: MINTERELLISON

BRIONY POLE

Special Counsel (Employment and WHS)

My Path to Get Here I graduated from UWA with a Bachelor of Laws in 2009. Unfortunately, this was the exact point in time when the Global Financial Crisis hit Australia and, overnight, graduate offers became extremely rare. Fortunately, I had been working as a Paralegal in a mid-size firm throughout university and secured a graduate offer there. After a 6-month rotation in Property, I joined the Employment team and never looked back. Employment Law and industrial relations are fascinating and unique and I still find the matters I work on as interesting and diverse as ever. In 2016, I joined MinterEllison, where I now work in one of the largest Employment Law teams in Perth. We have 2 partners, 5 senior lawyers and a number of associates and solicitors. MinterEllison has offices throughout Australia, as well as in New Zealand, China and London, and several lawyers from the Perth office have had the opportunity to spend some time living and working in those different locations.

The Work We Do In addition to our local team, MinterEllison has one of the largest and most highly regarded national Employment Law practices in Australia. This provides the opportunity to work on national matters for some of our large Australian and global clients with Partners from our East Coast offices. Technological improvements since COVID have made it easier for us to collaborate and work seamlessly on national industrial relations strategies. The employment law team at MinterEllison has worked on some groundbreaking Employment Law disputes in recent years and it has been a privilege to be able to participate. Being a global law firm does mean many of our clients have international owners or operations. For example, we have clients with parent companies in Japan, the USA and South Africa, and others with operations in Indonesia, Russia, Africa and North Macedonia. This can introduce an interesting element to our work where we are dealing with not just the law but also ‘cultural norms’. While this can feel unsettling at first, it certainly keeps it interesting. Fortunately, I have only once in my 10year legal career had to wake up at 3am to take a witness statement from someone in Salt Lake City, so having global clients hasn’t yet presented too many challenges in terms of working across different time zones. At Minters, we work flexibly and this is in step with most of our clients. While there is still an expectation people will be generally available most of the time during ‘traditional work hours,’ there is a greater ability for people to factor working from home days, sport, family commitments and leisure activities into their work week. Ultimately, if the work gets done within the timeframe and to the standard required, people have greater autonomy as to how they achieve that.

Advice for Graduates For those of you graduating this year, you are fortunate enough to be graduating during an employment ‘boom’ in Western Australia where there are plenty of jobs available. However, these things are cyclical, so I encourage you to think about how you can ensure your legal career is a long and stable one. Choose the firms you apply for carefully based on how they treat their people (in good times and in bad), what development programs they offer, their sustainability platform and the areas of law they practice in. Don’t be disheartened if you don’t receive an offer from your ‘preferred firm’ upfront. Instead, think about how you can invest time in developing your technical expertise, research skills, plain English drafting and practice management, wherever you end up. I can guarantee you will eventually find a way into the firm or practice area you prefer.