King & Wood Mallesons (
KWM) has named seven new partners to its Australian partnership, bringing its total number of partners in the country to 164.
Effective 1 July, Bill Ladas, Daisy Mallett, Kirsten Bowe, Daniel Natale, Francesa Giorlando, Kai-Chen Lamb, and Leah Ranie will be partners of the firm.
The promotions cover the firm’s dispute resolution, mergers and acquisitions, property and real estate, and tax practices. Five of the seven new partners are women, which brings the total number of women partners of the firm to 45, or 27% of the partnership. Last year, when KWM promoted 12 people to partner; five were women.
“These new partners represent the firm’s ongoing focus on growth in strategic areas, which match the needs of our Australian and offshore clients,” said Stephen Minns, the firm’s Australian chair.
The new partners by practice area are:
Dispute resolution
Bill Ladas (Melbourne) – Ladas joined KWM from
Corrs Chambers Westgarth in 2014 as a special counsel. Ladas specialises in intellectual property and has particular focus on trade mark and design law. He is an expert in trade mark portfolio advisory, prosecution and enforcement matters, together with the intellectual property aspects of due diligence in transactional matters.
Daisy Mallett (Sydney) – Mallett, a specialist in international arbitration, is focused on international trade, investment, shareholder, and joint venture disputes. She is a member of the
Law Council of Australia’s Transnational Litigation Committee and is the Asian region representative of the London Court of International Arbitration. She was also previously with WilmerHale and
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer in London.
Mergers and acquisitions
Kirsten Bowe (Brisbane) – Bowe specialises in large IT and commercial transactions and is also an expert in intellectual property and consumer law, procurement, outsourcing, and business transformation projects. She joined KWM as senior associate in 2008 and was promoted to special counsel in 2011.
Daniel Natale (Sydney) – Natale, who is a member of the corporate advisory group, specialises in both public and private M&A and restructures, capital raisings, public company/listed trust work, and financial services law. He has particular focus in the real estate, energy, and infrastructure sectors. Natale has been a KWM senior associate since 2011.
Projects and real estate
Francesca Giorlando (Sydney) – Giorlando specialises in property development, investment, acquisitions, and disposals. She acts for developers and corporate and institutional investors and has a practice that focuses on sectors including commercial, industrial, retail, and agricultural land. She has been a senior associate of the firm since 2004.
Tax
Kai-Chen Lamb (Melbourne) – A specialist in all aspects of income tax, Lamb has particular expertise in the tax treatment of managed funds, infrastructure and financing. She began her career KPMG, eventually moving to KWM. She was also briefly seconded to Chevron.
Leah Ranie (Sydney) – Ranie advises on the tax aspects of M&A and structured real estate and infrastructure transactions for major Australian and multinational clients. She has been a special counsel of the firm since 2013.
Related stories:
Top firm continues corporate bonds work for major developer
Sydney’s largest office landlord raises $500m with help from global firm
