The South Australian Intellectual property and TMT legal markets haven’t enjoyed the best of times in the last 12-14 months. Activity across both areas has been subdued and only soft IP disputes have provided any real strength to most practices.
Such markets generally tend to produce change and here is no exception with a number of stronger practitioners electing to move firms/establish new practices. Amongst our ranked practitioners, Josh Simons joined Thomson Geer in October 2013 (from Minter Ellison); Rob Kennett joined Cowell Clarke (after previously having been a long-serving partner at Kelly & Co/HWL Ebsworth); and Andrea Michaels, John MacPhail & Paul Gordon launched NDA Law in January 2015 (after moving from Finlaysons).
It’s still possibly too early to determine the genuine effect of these moves on the market overall and the true market position of each firms that has either bolstered its presence or lost personnel however within this framework HWL Ebsworth sit atop due to span across IP & TMT as well as the deepest ability to cover contentious and non-contentious work.
Unusually though it’s three individuals outside of HWL Ebsworth who each garnered almost twice as many votes ahead of other ranked practitioners to rank in our Preeminent IP category. DW Fox Tucker’s Sandy Donaldson and Thomson Geer’s Josh Simons on non-contentious work and Norman Waterhouse’s Greg Tye on contentious matters continue to be the market standards.
In TMT HWL Ebsworths Peter Cambell and Luke Dale streeted the field but, after this the distance between individuals and indeed firms was only minimal.