Australian firm Gadens has agreed to merge with Canberra-based Trinity Law, expanding the national firm’s footprint to the capital as it completes the financial integration of its network of offices. This is an edited version of an interview about last month’s deals with Gadens’ CEO and managing partner, Mark Pistilli.

Gadens has merged its Australian offices to create a single firm and opened in Canberra. What is the thinking behind these moves?

It’s clear to us that the Australian legal market’s globalisation has left it without enough top-tier independent law firms. There are lots of international law firms which want to refer work to Australia without having their clients represented by competitors with a presence in Australia, wherever they compete around the world. We believe there is space in the market for another leading independent firm and that is the journey we are on – pursuing acquisitive growth, lateral partner recruitment and internal promotions – so that we can cover the whole market and geography. 

How would you characterise the Australian legal market?

The market is dynamic and fragmented, and there isn’t a clearly defined top tier of law firms like there used to be. There are the larger fuller service but still international firms like Ashurst, HSF and Allens Linklaters and the Sino-Australian firm KWM. Then you have a number of overseas firms targeting specific practice areas, such as insurance or infrastructure. There are very successful boutique firms and then there are the independent Australian firms, which have seen the quality of cross-border work they advise on improve dramatically as a by-product of these developments, in that they are attracting high-quality lawyers and receiving quality referrals from international firms without a presence in the Australian market.

What is Gadens’ vision?

Our goal is to be a national champion law firm in Australia, moving towards being considered a tier-one firm. When we started this journey, nobody would have considered us as such, but in some areas we believe we have already achieved this goal. We don’t see many other firms in our position pursuing this strategy of actively targeting in-bound capital to be serviced by local independent experts and being free to refer outgoing capital to the best available lawyers (whatever firm they practice from).

You are a relative newcomer to Gadens. What has been your professional journey?

I started my career in the Allens group, an association of leading law firms in each Australian state (including Allens and Arthur Robinson), and witnessed the beginning of the market’s transformation when the state-based firms merged to form national firms. That evolution continued when international law firms entered the Australian market, some through mergers, others by setting up more focused practices. I was a name partner in a Sydney-based corporate boutique [Chang, Pistilli & Simmons] which merged with Clifford Chance in 2011 when it entered the market. After spending a committed five years at CC, I was free to join PwC to help it build a legal offering.

Partway through that journey, a Gadens board member I went to university with approached me. At the time Gadens was unusual in that it was still operating under a federated structure, but the federated Gadens firms had an appetite to change and were ambitious. In 2016, a few firms in the venture (the Adelaide, Perth and Sydney offices) had joined forces with Dentons. That had left Gadens with a Melbourne office, which subsequently reopened in Sydney; a Brisbane firm, which opened in Adelaide; and an associated Perth office. I joined the Sydney/Melbourne firm as CEO in 2020 with a remit to unify Gadens’ offices into a national firm, continue to rebuild the Sydney business and move the position of the firm in the market. I was hugely attracted to that proposition and could see the attraction to other leading and ambitious partners in the market.

How did you set about achieving this goal?

The Covid-19 pandemic set us back a bit. I had planted the seed of the strategy with the other firms that made up Gadens and negotiations started at pace in early 2023. Of course it helped that we had already worked together for many years. I have lived in South Australia, Western Australia and now New South Wales – and run a national M&A practice that had me doing many deals in Queensland. I think this helped reassure our colleagues that I had a national view and we weren’t going to centralise control in one particular office or state. In terms of governance, I have now taken a partnership role so am both CEO and managing partner. We operate a corporate model, with the executive team reporting to an elected board of partners representing all the firm’s offices but the managing partner role recognises the role I play with our lawyers in practice.

What are the benefits of unifying the offices and merging with Trinity Law to open in Canberra?

Our clients operate nationally, and they want to instruct a law firm that does the same. When recruiting partners or onboarding clients, if the first discussion is about us and how we are structured, we’ve already lost. That was the case before we integrated the offices. Canberra is an important jurisdiction for us. A well-balanced firm needs both private and government representation there and it was harder for us to do that on a fly in fly out basis. The merger in Canberra was suggested and driven by our mutual clients, and it was a natural fit due to our shared values, clients, ambition and past collaboration.

What are the next steps for Gadens?

We now have capability in the areas we want it, and we’re focused on growing capacity in all our offices, especially Sydney. We aim for constant growth, bringing in new lawyers and partners. We have just over 100 partners and envision a firm with 150-180 partners in time. We aim to build a modern, values-driven law firm, and seek to run our firm akin to how Ted Lasso would run a football team, enabling people to be the best versions of themselves in and out of the office.

We have the market’s leading parental leave policy, attracting both women and men who focus on building the best family life they can alongside their careers. Our strong community stance is evident, and our strategy emphasises people and social impact before money. We have a large group of female partners with a strong voice, and we aim to increase our 40% female partnership ratio. We are committed to net-zero emissions by 2030, so we are taking a lead in important areas and moving up the branding curve. I believe in playing an infinite game – it’s a process of continuous improvement, aiming to be better tomorrow than today. Now we have a multi-office, independent Australian law firm. We’re focused on being a relevant, leading law firm without adding ancillary services.