Our expertise

As global leaders in our fields, we advise the world’s biggest organisations on their most ambitious and complex projects. Our progressive approach, world-renowned expertise, and understanding of our clients is what ultimately sets us apart. Today, we’re delivering advanced, award-winning work on matters that will shape the future of law.

We have eight global Practice Groups:

  • Alternative Legal Services
  • Corporate
  • Competition Regulation and Trade
  • Dispute Resolution
  • Employment Industrial Relations and Safety
  • Finance
  • Projects
  • Real Estate

To provide the very best advice to deliver great outcomes for our clients, we combine our deep sector expertise with local market understanding. You can find out more about our Sectors and Services below.

Our client charter

In 2020, we launched Our Client Charter across our offices in Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney. Our Client Charter is our commitment to delivering a consistently excellent client experience. It is a commitment made to our clients, and to each other.

We look to Our Client Charter, together with our Firm Values, to guide our decisions and our ways of working. Our Client Charter will inspire us, guide us, and remind us of what we need to do every day.

Awards

Band 1 Global-wide Litigation Services – Chambers and Partners 2020 - 2021
Law Firm of the Year – Australasian Law Awards
GradAustralia Top 100 Employer
Received the most Band 1 rankings of any firm in Chambers Asia-Pacific Guide

Digital innovation

"Innovation has never been simply a buzzword to us – but in our world today it is an absolute necessity"
Justin D'Agostino, CEO

Next-generation lawyers 

Digital change is reshaping the global economy.

At Herbert Smith Freehills, we focus on how digital innovation responds to and creates growth opportunities in our clients' businesses and in our own firm. 

Digital innovation is relevant to all our clients' businesses, and often brings our clients into fresh areas of collaboration or competition. We enjoy guiding our clients through the challenges of the rapidly-changing digital landscape, and as a result, we regularly advise on cutting-edge issues at the intersection of technology and law.

As a firm, we believe innovation means creating an environment that cultivates new ideas, encourages collaboration across legal and non-legal disciplines and helps us to keep improving how we work with our clients. We partner with our clients to understand and respond to the evolving opportunities and challenges they face in the digital landscape, and we embrace digital innovation to transform our own ways of working.

The work we do

Technology and data give our clients myriad opportunities to become more efficient, faster, cheaper and resilient. They also introduce new outcomes and risks which need to be understood and addressed from a legal, as well as a commercial perspective.

Realising those benefits requires skillful navigation of often far-reaching, complex legal issues. It demands an analysis of laws that were simply not made for the digital age. We work as one global team to deliver the market-leading expertise that our clients need to succeed.

Whether in our technology, finance, real estate, employment or tax team, you’ll work across a variety of legal disciplines that break new ground. We invest heavily in you before and after qualification. We provide the resources and environment you need to achieve your full potential, including training and professional development opportunities.

Our cutting-edge digital work includes advising existing large companies and exciting start-ups on:

  • Blockchain and digital assets, including the establishment and operation of crypto exchanges and the world's first syndicated loan using blockchain technology.
  • Artificial intelligence, including AI-driven drug research, investments into market-leading AI businesses and the ethical use of AI.
  • Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CAV), including the digitisation of vehicle data by leading automotive manufacturers.

See more latest thinking here

The way we work

Digital disruption is changing the shape of the legal industry.

We take a proactive and adaptive approach to digital change and innovation. We think and work differently to keep pace with technological advances and evolving client needs. Our legal, technical and operational experts work as a single, global multidisciplinary team to develop innovative solutions and enhance the way we work.

Our digital innovations include:

  • 'Smart legal contracts' that automate the performance of contractual obligations by incorporating computer code into contracts, including establishing a collaborative venture with IBM and CSIRO's Data61 to develop blockchain-based infrastructure to run those contracts.
  • A technology tool to help business owners prove the presence of Covid-19 within a certain distance from their business to support insurance claims made under the "disease clause" of policies.
  • A market-leading decision analysis service based around building sophisticated decision trees derived from legal analysis. We assess the financial implications and probability of case outcomes to quantify legal risks more clearly, helping clients make data-informed strategic decisions.

See more latest thinking here

A responsible business

As one of the world’s leading law firms, we engage with the most important challenges and opportunities facing our clients. As a signatory to the UN Global Compact, we work with our people, clients and wider society to address needs in our communities.

Leading together for impact

Being a responsible business is about more than the firm’s ambition and influence – it's about fulfilling your hunger for a more profound sense of purpose and growth. There are many ways you can make a positive impact as part of Herbert Smith Freehills:

Pro bono legal work: we assist people experiencing, or at risk of, marginalisation, under-representation or disadvantage. Pro bono work is a great way to hone your skills – and give back.

Diversity and inclusion: we foster a culture where everyone feels respected and valued – and ask you to help us build and nurture that.

Social impact: we support the communities where we live and work: increasing social mobility in law, partnering for Indigenous Reconciliation, and supporting charities, for example. You can grow by giving your time and talents to help others grow.

Sustainability: as part of our work to minimise our environmental impact and tackle climate change, we were the first law firm to adopt science-based targets in pursuit of halving our carbon emissions by 2030 – and we're the global law firm partner of The Earthshot Prize. There are many ways you can help us protect and repair our planet to make a better future.

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