Mills Oakley expands Adelaide team, opens new office in Darwin

Commercial law firm Mills Oakley is on track for another year of double digit revenue growth amid an expansion into the Adelaide and Darwin markets.

Mills Oakley partners Sophie Cleveland, Lachlan Drew and Tina Tomaszewski with chief executive John Nerurker. Picture: Pierce Mason Stephens - Stone Marketing

Commercial law firm Mills Oakley is on track for a 20th consecutive year of double digit revenue growth on the back of new offices in Adelaide and Darwin and a fast-growing partnership group that’s looking to join the ranks of Australia’s top tier firms.

The mid-tier firm is closing in on the recruitment of a ninth partner at its Adelaide office, which is already up to 40 staff less than two years after its launch.

With a new office in Darwin opened earlier this year, the firm now has a permanent presence in all mainland capital cities, led by a group of close to 170 partners.

According to The Australian’s Legal Partnership survey published in September, the partnership group grew by 12.5 per cent in the year to June, making it the second fastest growing of the top 10 law firms, with 439 fee earning lawyers.

Chief executive John Nerurker said the firm’s rapid growth in recent years had helped to shield it from the economic slowdown, and the downturn in mergers & acquisitions and other corporate activities that require specialist legal services.

“We’re growing, and firms that aren’t growing, they’re effectively going backwards because their costs rise each year,” he said.

“The stronger firms survive and grow during those (challenging economic) periods. If you don’t have a strong balance sheet, if you’re not well governed financially, then those firms are likely to struggle most in difficult economic times.

“And conversely, your firms that do those things well are going to prosper. And in part, their growth and prosperity will come from partners, clients and staff voting with their feet to leave less well governed firms to join a firm on the rise. So there’s a bit of that going on in the current market as well.”

Mr Nerurker said the firm was on track to generate $300m-$400m in fee revenue in the current financial year, putting it on track for a 20th consecutive year of double digit revenue growth.

But the man who has led the firm since 2004 doesn’t measure the firm’s success based on partner or revenue figures, but rather on its ambition be “Australia’s leading national law firm” – one that secures work on top-tier deals while also remaining loyal to its roots.

“If you’re in a bet-the-farm dispute or a behemoth M&A deal, you want the very best, so our goal and our strategy has always been to assemble the leading lawyers and practitioners in their respective fields,” he said.

“Our growth has come as a consequence of relentlessly executing that strategy well for a long time.

“You can't shrink your way to greatness ... but we firmly know our roots, and we have never turned our back on all those loyal clients who have stood by us. In many cases we have supported individuals and corporations since they incorporated or since their careers began – and that won’t change.”

Mills Oakley opened its Adelaide office at the beginning of 2023 after poaching a group of property lawyers from rival MinterEllison.

After initially focusing on property, insurance, litigation and insolvency services, the Adelaide office later expanded its corporate, employment and government services, and last year added family law firm Culshaw Bishop to its expanding team.

Mr Nerurker said his firm provided a compelling alternative to other national firms that had tried to crack the Adelaide market.

“We provide a pretty good alternative to the top end of town law firms, in so far as we’ve got a lot of top tier expertise in our partnership ranks, but with all the benefits of a nimble, agile, medium-sized law firm, including from a pricing perspective,” he said.

“I think those elements have combined to make us a bit of a destination law firm at the moment.

“I think a mistake that a few firms have made is to try and impose national rates and pricing on the South Australian market, and it just does not work. We’re seeing firms that have sought to do so shrink, lose partners, lose staff and lose clients.”