Media release | Gadens adds five new partners

Gadens today advised that it has appointed five new partners to its Melbourne and Sydney partnership. The new partners are Louise Rumble (Employment Advisory, Sydney), Matthew Taylor (Real Estate and Construction), Melissa McGrath (Intellectual Property and Technology, Sydney), Rebecca Laban (Disputes and Investigations, Sydney) and Savannah Hardingham (Intellectual Property and Technology, Melbourne).

Commenting on the appointments, Mark Pistilli, Chief Executive Officer, says:

“These are five very exciting appointments for our firm across some of our key practice areas. Four of the appointments are in our Sydney office, which is growing quickly across the board. We are continuing to see a strong and growing demand from our clients for our expertise across almost all areas of our practice, and each of these new partners add to our existing depth but also bring some unique skills that complement the existing expertise in our firm, which will be of great benefit to our clients across a range of sectors. I am most excited about the fact that the majority of our new appointments have been women, and that now almost 40% of our partnership is female.”

Louise Rumble was previously a partner at Holding Redlich, where she is a specialist workplace relations lawyer who practices across the employment lifecycle, from engagement to separation. She also advises on workforce strategy, and has over 13 years’ experience advising to a cross-section of industries. Louise is passionate about the need for law reform to enable workplaces to achieve flexibility which suits both business and employee needs, and regularly presents on a range of workplace issues (including, for example, the Fair Work Ombudsman’s powers and enforcement activities, as well as gender equality in the workplace).

Matthew Taylor joins Gadens from Norton Rose Fulbright. Matthew specialises in construction disputes. His practice primarily involves larger scale construction disputes in the Supreme Court of NSW, expert determinations and domestic and international arbitrations. He also advises clients regarding payment claims and payment schedules and adjudications under the Security of Payments legislation. Matthew’s clients include contractors (including joint venture parties), and principals (including councils and Commonwealth departments) in relation to project delivery issues and contractual disputes.

Mellissa McGrath was previously a partner at Coleman Greig. Melissa has experience in copyright enforcement and protection; patentability, freedom to operate, and strategies to enforce and protect patent rights; brand portfolio creation and expansion; trade mark registrability, prosecution and opposition; domain name recovery and acquisition; licencing of IP; sponsor and social media influencer agreements; distribution agreements; loyalty rewards agreements; investor relationship agreements; software licenses and software development agreements; contract manufacturing, supply and distribution agreements; and IP due diligence.

Rebecca Laban joins from Norton Rose Fulbright. Rebecca’s practice touches on many areas of practice including Financial Services Regulation, Disputes, Banking and Finance and Corporate. She advises major financial institutions on banking litigation, fraud, debt recovery, security enforcement, remediation programs and financial regulation. Much of Rebecca’s practice is centred around financial services compliance with regulatory obligations. She has worked closely with business units and compliance areas across financial institutions as part of risk identification and management projects (such as in respect of internal investigations into high risk banking products), and has assisted financial institutions with regulatory investigations and enforcement action as well as extensive remediation programs.

Savannah Hardingham was previously a partner at K+L Gates. Savannah specialises in intellectual property (IP) with experience in the protection, management, exploitation and enforcement of IP rights including trademarks, copyright and designs. She is also experienced in matters relating to the misuse of confidential information, passing off and misleading and deceptive conduct. Savannah acts for a range of clients including designer builders, fashion and footwear brand owners, designers and manufacturers, retailers and tech companies. She also works extensively in the property sector, and provides support to corporate teams and corporate transactions.