Cridlands MB News
Territory legal leaders join forces
Reflecting growth of business in the Territory and responding to demand for sophisticated legal services, its two leading commercial law firms, Cridlands and Morgan Buckley, will join forces to become Cridlands MB.
Cridlands MB unites one of the Northern Territory's longest established law firms with a success story from the 1980s to create the largest Top End commercial firm with 70 staff including 31 lawyers. The firm will have 13 partners.
In a joint statement, Cridlands Managing Partner, Richard Giles said, "We are proud to announce our merger with Morgan Buckley. Our path to legal excellence and service leadership has been boosted by choosing internationally quality accredited law firm, Morgan Buckley, to join forces with Cridlands Lawyers.
Our clients demand prompt and reliable legal advice. This is an enormous boost to our capacity in the Territory."
Tony Morgan, Morgan Buckley Partner and a leader in the Darwin legal community, is a partner in the new firm. "I'm delighted with the merger of two progressive, locally owned law firms, recognised as legal leaders.
It's a great strategic fit for both of us - exciting innovations, leading-edge technology, genuine commitment to business excellence, and great people. We couldn't have found better alignment.
We all recognised the huge benefits of this merger - first and foremost to our corporate and government clients who demand proactive legal services which address their needs and resolve their problems. This is also a win for Territory business and the community generally. Our lawyers will have great opportunities to be part of better resourced specialist legal teams.
From August, our combined clients will have access to more legal resources with more depth and at more locations." Morgan continued.
"With 31 lawyers located in Darwin and Alice Springs we are by far the largest genuinely on the ground firm in the Northern Territory."
Commenting on the strategic rationale for merging Cridlands and Morgan Buckley, Richard Giles said, "Great people, excellent service, proven quality in action, exceptional legal expertise, impressive depth of resources and the finest technology - we all recognised this combination as perfect to produce impressive results for our clients.
Territory High Court Shelved
Northern Territory legal organisations say the High Court can't convene in Darwin after plans to build a Commonwealth law court building in the CBD have been shelved.
The Law Society president Duncan McConnel says the Territory has produced a significant amount of important High Court decisions that have affected the state of law in Australia but the court's never sat in the Territory.
He says that has disadvantaged Territory applicants who are forced to travel to Canberra for hearings.
The Law Society and Chamber of Commerce are calling on the Federal Government to build a properly designed law court building in the civic precinct, which could house High Court sittings.
"Cases involving the land rights act and native title where those cases have gone to the High Court you know Aboriginal people having to travel to Canberra at great cost," Mr McConnel says.
"It's a great distance and disruption for those people in particular to leave the Northern part of the Australia and have to go down there."
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