Commercial firm scores senior disputes trio from rival

The team has extensive experience, including leading major workplace investigations

Commercial firm scores senior disputes trio from rival
Henry Davis York has hired three senior lawyers from HWL Ebsworth as it expands its Canberra team.

Dispute resolution specialists Melanie McKean, Megan Knight, and Rosalie Byrne are starting with HDY next month. McKean, who joins the firm’s partnership, will start on 1 May. Byrne and Knight, who both join the firm as special counsel, start on 9 May and 22 May, respectively.

The trio have worked together at HWL Ebsworth for more than five years. McKean and Knight are HWLE partners and Byrne is a senior associate of the firm. Their extensive experience includes acting in litigation, dispute resolution, and workplace investigation matters.

McKean specialises in investigations and reviews, litigation, and dispute resolution. Knight, who specialises in litigation and dispute resolution, specialises in matters concerning the government, property, IT and telecommunications, financial services, regulatory and competition, and disciplinary actions matters.

In recent years, the team acted in the defence of litigated and unlitigated claims in the Australian Capital Territory and federal jurisdictions. They have also acted for the Commonwealth and for corporate clients in complex multi-party proceedings and group claims that involved coordination with multiple Commonwealth entities.

McKean, Knight, and Byrne are experts in workplace conduct investigations, particularly those in accordance with the Public Interest Disclosure Act. McKean was one of the leaders of the “Review of Allegations of Sexual and Other Abuse in Defence” investigation and the team also acted in the “CSIRO Investigation into Workplace Bullying and Other Unreasonable Behaviour” investigation.

The trio’s move to the firm follows the appointments of partners Debra Tippett and Ben Fuller, special counsel Angie Freeman, and senior associates Rachel Bannikoff and Chris Headon last year.


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