In August, 1991, Danny Gilbert and Sam Mostyn made a bet on each other – a bet that proved to be more successful than either of them could have imagined.

Gilbert, a gung-ho corporate lawyer with a conscience, offered Mostyn a job as a junior lawyer at his fledging Sydney law firm. Operating out of a simple, rented office in Carrington Street near Wynyard Station, Gilbert + Tobin had 30 or so lawyers. But Gilbert wanted to become a major force in telecommunications law, and offered a job to a bright-but-inexperienced solicitor from one of the city’s leading corporate law firms, Freehill Hollingdale and Page.