The most valuable lawyers in Australia right now?

Head of SSQ's Australia office Kumara Mallikaaratchi joins host Ben Quarry in this episode of The SSQ Podcast, for a discussion about the forces reshaping the Australian legal market.

Together they explore how the rapid growth of renewable energy is driving demand across the profession, why challenger firms are increasingly competing with traditional market leaders, and how changing client expectations are influencing partner moves and firm strategy.

Watch for more on:
- Australia's renewable energy boom
- Partner remuneration and equity structures
- Why energy lawyers are in such high demand
- How lawyers can accelerate their careers when returning to the Australian market

Drawing on years of experience advising partners and firms across Australia, Kumara shares insight into one of the most active and evolving sectors in the legal market today.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Hi, I'm Ben Quarry and welcome back to the SSQ podcast. Today I'm rejoined by Kamara Malakarachi, the head of our Australia office. Kamara, welcome back. Thanks very much for having me, Ben. Good to be back on the pod. Brilliant. And look, today I want to talk a little bit about what you're doing within the Australian market. Because I'm conscious that, you know, we're a very international business. We talk a lot about what we do around the world. But actually, Australia is one of our newest businesses. And so just talk me through sort of what your focus is on within the market and you know areas that perhaps are busier, you know, the types of firm you're dealing with.

SPEAKER_01 0:40

Starting point is actually I've been in the Australian market for coming up to seven years. For a lot of that time, we've been working with all the premium firms across the nation. Um, it's very clear in Australia that there is a focus from a pure economic standpoint uh that renewable energy is the biggest growing sector in Australia. Uh, and as we all know at SSQ, law firms pretty much follow where the sectors in the local economy are building and developing. Um, so I'm often working with mainly partners uh at the very senior level in the renewable energy space, um, and that covers all types of practice in the sector. Okay. So all lawyers from everything you need in the project life cycle. So environment and planning, real estate, project finance, project documentation, corporate MA, um, a sort of all full all-service, cradle to grave sort of offering. Um, it's a very interesting area law at the moment in Australia, given a massive focus from the federal government in terms of shifting away from traditional energy towards renewable energy. Um, everybody talks about the 2030 targets in Australia, which is a big push by the federal government to uh increase the amount of electricity on the grid from renewable energy sources. So you've got that sort of almost regulatory overlay on top of the conventional kind of project life cycle. Massively so. So I think at the moment what you're seeing in Australia is a real shift where you've had federal government policy from the Labor government, which supports renewable energy, um, and then each of the uh the states have their own sort of take on that. Okay. Uh so really interesting recently, uh the Queensland government was supportive of renewable energy, and now the sort of liberal leaders of the Queensland state government has shifted again away from renewable energy. So you're seeing this kind of very transient movement throughout the nation. Uh, but what is clear is that there is a shift towards decarbonisation, a shift away from coal fire and uh and a need for a different type of energy source. And um the market clearly shows that renewable energy is the cheapest source of uh energy to supplement the grid. Yeah, um, and we're seeing that in all forms. So that's mainly onshore wind, um, solar, and best. BESS is probably the biggest area of development at the moment. Um, and I'm working with law firms across the nation, all different types of law firms who are all interested in lawyers with that kind of skill set.

SPEAKER_00 3:02

And and so one of the things I actually wanted to ask is so Australia obviously is a massive country. There are certain key hubs, right? Sydney being one of them, Perth presumably being one of them. I mean, are you working across all the major cities in Australia or are you sort of just focused on one?

SPEAKER_01 3:18

Our clients, i.e., the law firms, um, generally will hire and recruit across the nation. Yeah. So it's very easy for someone like myself to be doing the same. It's very jurisdiction-specific as to what we would do in those regions. So, to your point, um, Perth very much is still uh, or Western Australia as a whole is still very much embedded in traditional mining country? Uh, energy and resources, yeah, mining country. Um, so working with firms out in that region would be more in that space rather than in the renewable or clean energy space. Um, I would say the Eastern Seaboard now, it's pretty much jurisdiction agnostic as to where firms will hire their lawyers. Um, most of the tier one firms that have you know deep uh bench strength in renewable energy or clean energy uh have lawyers across Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane. Um, it's not really that much of a significant difference between them. Uh a lot of the clients, so developers tend to be based down in Melbourne. We are across the nation um from Sydney where I'm based.

SPEAKER_00 4:18

Okay, fine. And in terms of the you mentioned you you deal with a wide variety of firms, obviously Australia as a market is one partly because it's so far away from so many other jurisdictions that is quite inward looking in terms of a lot of the work that the Australian law firms are doing will be domestic, Australia-based work. Obviously, there'll be cross-border work as well, there'll be stuff that you do you know outside of Australia, but obviously a lot of it is inward looking. So, I mean, in terms of kind of the firms you're dealing with, obviously you have top domestic firms, you have international firms who've got presence there. Do you find there's a difference between how each of those sort of categories of firm operate, or is it very much the same that you know these are guys are the top people in the Australian market?

SPEAKER_01 4:57

It's uh it's actually a very interesting time, uh, particularly in energy, um, around that mid-market or national practice versus international law firm. Yeah. So traditionally you'll say see that the sort of premium international law firms are seen as the leaders in renewable energy. Um, however, there's definitely been a shift on the client side in energy towards a cost consciousness around legal fees.

SPEAKER_02 5:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:23

And so what that lends itself to is an ability now for what we're referring to as the disruptors in the sector, so strong nationals or mid-market law firms to offer something slightly different. So we've seen recently some big hires from national practices who've hired from, say, the international law firms, uh, kind of entrepreneurial younger partners who see value in a level playing field and being able to offer things like better fee structures to their clients. Um, and so we're we're definitely now seeing a big movement and shift away from what we would usually refer to as the big six towards strong national practices. And actually, um, a lot of the data, a lot of the commentary that's come out recently shows that the firms that are hiring the most partners are your strong national practices, uh, which were previously thought of as mid-market, but are now definitely competing against those big firms, especially in an area like energy where more lawyers are being entrepreneurial and thinking about exactly am I at the right platform to get the value out of my skill set? Um, I think a really important factor as well for the partners are around the different fee structures and equity structures.

SPEAKER_02 6:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:34

Um and I think it's very difficult for a partner in Australia to know what structures are like at other firms. Unlike the UK, where there seems to be a lot of information, a lot of publicly available information on what the structures can look like. Yeah. In Australia, what you kind of tend to find when you're speaking with partners is that they know what their structure is. Um, you know, they know potentially the structure of maybe a few of their friends or um firms they may have worked at previously, but they don't tend to know exactly what their competitors are offering.

SPEAKER_00 7:02

Okay, interesting.

SPEAKER_01 7:03

Um, and I've definitely found that very interesting, having worked across a full spectrum of law firms, um, you know, the top-tier firms aren't always paying the best, which is quite interesting. Interesting. Uh, a lot of the national practices now have very good equity structures, um, hybrid models, um, or uh an easier sort of access to equity. That means that you as an individual partner can get much more value out of your skill set and your practice than if you say, say that a you know traditional tier one firm that's a bit more institutionalized in terms of clients or has uh a more competitive structure to get into the equity.

SPEAKER_00 7:37

And so have you on the equity point, have you seen I mean we've seen a lot of the particularly international firms who are expanding in a large way all around the world? If they hadn't already introduced the non-equity tier, a lot of them are now introducing it because it's a way that you can scale. Obviously, Australian market completely different, but domestic firms in Australia typically will they have that that two-tier system of a a non-equity tier to begin with, then moving into equity, or are they more old-fashioned as it were, and uh all equity partnerships. And I appreciate it will vary firm by firm, but is there a trend there at all? Um that that's actually exactly my point.

SPEAKER_01 8:11

Um there's no real trend across you know yeah, well, exactly. Well, hopefully, um there's no real trend across different categories of firms, but each firm has its own offering. Uh, the non-equity partner point is very interesting because a lot of Australian lawyers don't even um sort of recognise that because there's not that many um US law firms in Australia. Uh, you can name them one hand who would offer a non-equity uh salaried partner title. Um, the majority of the firms offer some form of hybrid model. Um so it might not be a salaried title, but there might be guaranteed points in the first, say, one to three years. Yeah, um, and there are still the full equity models, obviously the more traditional structures, yeah. Uh, but each has its own nuance, each has its own structure in place. Um, certain firms offer bonuses to non-equity partners in a certain way that will allow you to earn a significant amount of money even though you're not in the equity. Um, so it really depends on the on the law firm. And as I say, it is very difficult to know any information on equity structures unless you're speaking someone who's speaking to those firms. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:14

Fine, very good. And and I guess lastly, and and sort of before we run out of time, the the other thing I wanted to ask you about is we've spoken previously about uh people deciding to sort of leave Australia and move elsewhere, work in whether it be London, whether it be the US or whatever. But obviously the second half of that is that actually a lot often these people want to come back, or it may be people who are in those jurisdictions who are interested, not dissimilar to you, in moving to Australia for a combination of lifestyle, professional, family reasons and what have you. So I guess your advice if you were talking to a lawyer who is not based in Australia but is interested in Australia, either returning or you know, coming in for the first time. I mean, I know you deal with a senior end, and so uh that also gets more complicated. But I guess just as a more general piece of advice, when is the best time for someone to come home, as it were, if they've had experience elsewhere, is is there a set time or is it just to come down to you know what the market's doing and what practice area they're in?

SPEAKER_01 10:07

So I think regardless of practice area, um everyone knows if you go and work in a more mature, sophisticated market, you are immediately sought after in the Australian market. You're a you're a market leader as soon as you return. Um, I think I wouldn't put much of an emphasis on time frame, okay, but what I would say is that um going back to say the sector I'm focused in, which is energy, yeah. Um we don't have many specialists in renewable energy in Australia. What we tend to find is that the Australian market has traditionally over the last decade been massively infrastructure focused. And so the the best or the highest demands are for those lawyers who've gone to so let's say the UK or the US, they've worked in what we'd say is that kind of full cradle to grave offering in renewable energy teams rather than it being specific to practice area, you know, especially if you go to the UK, somewhere like Link Laters and the E and I team, you have that full service of project financing, project documentation, etc. Um, it's those lawyers that return to Australia that see their careers really progress and springboard. Okay. So a couple of examples, I I'm working with a few lawyers at the moment who are phenomenal lawyers, they're technically the best lawyers in the market because of the fact they've spent time abroad. Um, they are gold dust. Every client I work with wants to hire that person. Yeah, uh, it also goes back to that point around clients. Um, clients in the energy space have become incredibly savvy. I think that's very well known in the market now. So, where we used to have a market where you had institutionalized clients that would usually only work with particular law firms or particular people at those firms who are sort of older partners, um, those clients are now recognizing that the more junior partners are technically better. Uh they're the ones doing the actual legal documents. Uh, and again, on that point around sort of looking at your practice, some of those partners are now sort of seeing that they are recognized by the clients, they're technically the best, and they're instructures sometimes that don't give them the best remuneration for the quality of the work that they're delivering. So it's actually those partners now who are thinking in a more entrepreneurial and savvy way. But to the point around relocators or returners, uh, the more experience you have in an international market, yeah, the better um your career will progress in Australia. Uh so I wouldn't say there's a particular time frame, but I would always encourage people to spend a stint abroad, uh, bring that skill set from a more mature market back to Australia. Uh, and clients, as I say, are very savvy to that, and therefore so are the law firms that are recruiting. So they can use it as a career accelerator, really. Absolutely, absolutely, especially in energy where uh the UK is far beyond Australia in terms of renewable energy. Um, the the the sophistication of the market, the types of the projects that they do in the UK, if you've done that work in solar, wind, best, you come back to Australia, you've got a skill set that a lot of your peers don't have in the Australian market.

SPEAKER_00 12:49

No, it completely makes sense. Well, look, Kamara, it's been great to have you back. Uh, next time we will do it in Australia, I promise you. Uh, but thank you for rejoining me. And um, we'll speak to you again soon. Australia or LA. Or LA or LA. I mean, there's always there's always a direct flight as we know now. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 13:05

Thanks for having me, Ben. Good speak.