Chambers Westgarth

LIFE IN A NATIONAL LAW FIRM: CORRS CHAMBERS WESTGARTH

NICK ELLERY

Partner, Workplace Relations

From UWA law student, to partner in Australia’s leading independent law firm, Corrs Chambers Westgarth (Corrs), Nick Ellery has enjoyed a diverse and interesting legal career – which has included working for a future Prime Minister and practicing internationally. In his current role at Corrs, he regularly appears as counsel in the superior courts and tribunals in Australia, in addition to managing the day-to-day needs of his clients. Born and raised in Perth, Nick graduated from UWA in 1991 with a Bachelor of Laws, before moving to Melbourne where he joined Slater and Gordon as an articled clerk in 1992. There he was directly supervised by Julia Gillard (Prime Minister of Australia to be) and Bernard Murphy (now a Federal Court Judge). Nick highly valued his time under Ms Gillard and Justice Murphy and remembers learning a great deal from both. Ms Gillard had high standards, attention to detail and gave strong feedback in a constructive manner, and Justice Murphy had a great strategic mind for the law. His time at Slater and Gordon was spent representing unions, most prominently in a number of class actions against high profile clothing and shoe manufacturers such as Nike and Adidas for exploiting migrant workers employed in sweatshop type conditions in and around Melbourne. Nick left Slater and Gordon in the mid-90s to travel and work in London for a year as a paralegal with the Securities and Investments Board, before returning to Perth and working for two years as a legal officer for a union, now known as United Workers Union. This involved a great deal of court work and advocacy in industrial relations tribunals. Following his time at United Workers Union, Nick briefly returned to Slater and Gordon, before looking for a change. In 1998, Nick interviewed with a young, up-and-coming partner (who would become a CEO of Corrs Chambers Westgarth), John Denton. Nick had worked on the other side of many litigation matters against Corrs, and was attracted to Corrs by the commercial approach they took to matters, fighting when a fight had to be had, but settling when it was in their client’s best interests to do so. After joining Corrs and working in both the Brisbane and Melbourne offices, Nick settled in the Perth office in 2000, where he developed the workplace relations team from a small subset of litigation to a standalone practice group and eventually became Partner-in-Charge of the Perth office. He acted in this role for over 10 years, focusing on the overall direction of the firm, and the Perth office in particular. In his time as Partner-in-Charge, Nick oversaw the move of the Perth office to Brookfield Place Tower 2, where the firm now works in an open-plan setting. Now focused on his day-to-day client work, Nick runs a strong workplace relations practice and focuses extensively in industrial relations, employment, health and safety, discrimination, and government relations. His practice specialises in the strategic management of significant organisation change, restructures and acquisitions of businesses and resolution of disputes. As an active litigator in a diverse range of industries including resources, construction, utilities, health, maritime, insurance and the government sector, Nick’s days often involve providing clients with advice on their legal rights and responsibilities under the relevant legislation, attending client meetings and site visits, and appearing in courts, tribunals and mediations. Nick is also actively involved in a number of pro bono matters. He was a member of the Board of Directors for around 10 years of the Employment Law Centre of WA (ELCWA), a not-for-profit community legal centre which assists vulnerable employees understand and enforce their rights at work through legal advice, assistance, representation, education and law reform. He helped steer the ELCWA through a merger process with two other community legal centres into what is now known as Circle Green, a leading community legal centre in WA.