Lawyers & Consultants
Kym Atkins
Kym has extensive commercial experience gained in Australia and the UK in both private practice and in in-house corporate roles. Her in-house experience includes roles at Eurostar, Barclays and most recently as Senior Legal Adviser – Contracts with Bankwest. Her private practice experience was gained in one of WA’s largest local law firms and in the London office of a large international firm.
Kym has broad contracts experience including drafting and negotiating core commercial contracts for the supply of goods and services. She has also advised on and participated in tender processes and asset sales, has managed IT contracting and negotiations and also managed procurement, in particular facilities management. In addition, she has expertise in intellectual property, privacy, trial preparation and litigation management.
Kate Barker
Kate is an experienced litigation and commercial lawyer with expertise in both large and small scale matters including numerous large mining and resources litigations, corporate and commercial actions, native title disputes, medical negligence and insurance claims.
She has expertise in all aspects of litigation from preparation of materials, discovery, proofing of witnesses, document management, as instructing solicitor and including appearances in various Courts and Tribunals and arbitrations and mediations. Prior to joining Balance, Kate was at the boutique litigation firm Maxim Litigation Consultants.
In addition to her litigation expertise, Kate also has general corporate, property and commercial experience having advised on, drafted and negotiated agreements relating to a wide range of general commercial matters.
Ann Blake
Ann is an experienced corporate and commercial lawyer who has consolidated her top tier private practice experience with significant in house roles. She has expertise in the renewable energy and industrial sectors and has significant corporate advisory and company secretarial experience.
Ann commenced her career in private practice at Freehills in the Head Office Advisory Team and later became a member of Piper Alderman’s corporate advisory group. In these roles she provided advice on the broad range of corporate law requirements relating to corporate governance, shareholder communications and market disclosure for listed companies. In 2007 Ann joined Incitec Pivot as Corporate Counsel – Australian Fertilisers Business Unit. More recently she was the sole Corporate Counsel at Nu Energy and was that company’s first in-house lawyer. Ann was responsible for the establishment and management of Nu Energy’s legal function, a demanding role which serviced the entire company and its offices across Australia.Haaron Bokhari
During his time in private practice Haaron worked predominantly in the area of banking and finance law. He has worked closely with clients in respect of their general corporate, acquisition and, in particular, project finance needs. Given Western Australia’s booming mining and resources sector, it is not surprising that Haaron’s private practice work focused within this industry and a broad resource law experience was attained.
Since joining Balance Legal, Haaron has undertaken secondments at Chevron, Rio Tinto and Macmahon Holdings. At Macmahon Haaron gained considerable experience in construction law as well as furthering his resource law experience through exposure to mining contracts. At the lengthy Chevron secondment his responsibilities included negotiating and drafting procurement and services contracts, assisting with the preparation of Australian contract templates for purchase of goods and services and drafting internal documentation allowing secondment of project personnel across multiple jurisdictions.
Haaron has an interest in Corporate Governance having recently completed a Diploma in Applied Corporate Governance.
Elisha Branston
Elisha is an experienced corporate and commercial lawyer having worked in Perth in a boutique mergers and acquisitions practice and then in Sydney in the international firm, Baker & Mckenzie in their Corporate practice group.
Elisha has advised in a number of private and public mergers and acquisitions and has had responsibility for undertaking and coordinating due diligence, drafting of relevant agreements and ancillary documentation (e.g. sale and purchase agreements, confidentiality agreements, data room protocols and completion documentation) and coordinating the completion of transactions. She also has significant capital raising experience including IPOs and rights issues and has advised companies on international listing and has drafted various shareholders’ agreements and subscription agreements.
Brian Buckley
His solid national firm experience in both Sydney and Perth is complemented by the 2 years he spent as a Judges Associate in the Victorian Court of Appeal. He has most recently been working as a solicitor in the Perth office of the national firm Gadens, where he specialised in commercial litigation for construction, resources and industrial clients and also provided advice in insolvency and debt recovery matters.
Kate Burrows
Kate is an experienced lawyer, with expertise in commercial law, litigation, insurance and property gained in private practice and in house. She started her legal career in the UK where she worked primarily for a large Welsh commercial law firm specialising in litigation and insurance. Since moving to Australia, Kate has worked for large national firms and boutique practices and has most recently been employed in house as Corporate Counsel at GoodStart Childcare Limited (formerly ABC Learning).
Kate has significant experience in providing advice on a large range of commercial issues; in negotiating and drafting commercial documents; including third party supply contracts, leases and assignments and in advising in relation to the legal and commercial issues arising from transactions and negotiations. She also has significant expertise in dispute resolution and in all aspects of litigation in areas such as construction, contractual claims, insurance and employers liability.
Andrea Chapman
Andrea is a senior lawyer with broad commercial experience gained in house and in top tier law firms. She has most recently been Senior Legal Counsel, Governance and Compliance at Horizon Power. In that role she has been responsible for providing legal advice in the areas of construction, supply, works and consultancy services contracts, procurement, property and tenure issues and advising on a range of regulatory issues. In addition she has negotiated indemnity and liability regimes and managed litigation.
At Freehills Andrea was a member of its commercial litigation division where in the course of managing contractual disputes she was involved in the interpretation and review of clients’ contractual obligations. As well as general commercial litigation Andrea has worked extensively with insurers and corporate insureds providing legal and strategic advice in relation to claims and risk management.
Kathy Davidson
Kathy is a senior commercial, insurance, litigation and mediation lawyer with over 20 years' experience, including 8 years as a partner of a leading Perth insurance law and litigation firm. In addition she has further private practice at top tier national firms in Australia and in a boutique property practice in Perth and a commercial practice in the UK. Kathy also has in house experience in banking in the UK where she was responsible for reporting directly to the Board on the progress of all litigation. Most recently during her time in WA State Government, she was responsible for implementing changes to legislation and briefing the relevant ministers and department personnel.
Julia Devlin
Julia has a broad range of corporate and commercial experience, predominantly in the resources, energy and infrastructure sectors.
Julia commenced her career at Corrs Chambers Westgarth, before moving to London where she was an Associate at Reed Smith in the Corporate and Finance Practice Group. Julia has most recently worked as a solicitor at DLA Phillips Fox in Perth, practising in the Mining, Energy and Infrastructure Group. In these private practice roles, Julia developed expertise in joint ventures, resources law, mergers and acquisition, projects and corporate due diligence. Her recent in house experience has exposed her to resources, procurement and the power generation and construction industries.
Bronagh Doherty
Her most recent secondment with Balance has been 6 months at Alcoa where she has been responsible for a major procurement and commercialisation project in the course of which she has drafted and reviewed the terms sheets for the project and other documents including the shareholders agreement, leases, supply agreement, operating and maintenance agreement and supply and marketing agreement. She has also been responsible for IT and telecommunications procurement and has provided general assistance and advice regarding the standardisation of various pro-forma procurement contracts.
Bronagh has significant experience drafting, reviewing, negotiating, advising and acting in relation to commercial contracts; sale, purchase and leases of commercial and retail property; general commercial contractual work; strata title and land subdivision developments. She has also conducted due diligence, and negotiated large scale contractual arrangements for property acquisitions and disposals.
Jill Elias
Further to her energy regulation expertise, she has experience in a wide range of general corporate and commercial matters including trade practices, competition law, compliance, corporate issues and governance, risk management, employment law and commercial property and leasing. Jill has advised on intellectual property issues nationally, especially on strategies for protection of intellectual property. In addition, she has significant litigation and FOI expertise.
Karen Fleischer
Karen is a senior lawyer with over 20 years experience in the corporate, commercial and property fields. Prior to joining Balance Legal, Karen was the senior in-house legal adviser to an ASX 200 company for over 10 years, and she has a depth of experience in all legal aspects of the operation and growth of the company from a newly listed company into the largest agricultural investment management company in Australia.
Prior to moving in-house, Karen acquired technical expertise in commercial and property law, and a broad exposure to a variety of industries and businesses working with Freehills for nearly 10 years, in the UK for one of the top London law firms and in house at a subsidiary of British Telecom.
Her most recent secondment has been as Acting GC for an ASX listed resources company.
Janet Gillam
Janet has had extensive exposure to, and hands on involvement with all aspects of corporate and commercial, construction and litigation transactions. She has been responsible for providing legal advice and structuring, drafting and negotiating on a wide variety of core commercial contracts and other general corporate and construction matters.
Janet started her career in 2 of Australia’s major law firms and has had a number of senior in house counsel roles, including as General Counsel and Company Secretary to Carsales.com.au which during her tenure successfully listed on the ASX in September 2009. Janet also recently held the role of Acting General Counsel at Grocon during which she lead a number of major and complex construction and property transactions, including a landmark development involving building over live rail-lines.
John Hayward
John is a Fellow of the Taxation Institute of Australia and the Australian Institute of Company Directors. John has many years experience as a director of public companies and of the Australian subsidiaries of multinational groups.
John has lectured and presented numerous papers on taxation, revenue and corporations law to the Law Society of Western Australia, Taxation Institute, Institute of Chartered Accountants, Business Law Education Centre, Law Asia and IIR Conferences in Australia and to the Singapore Law Society and other professional and industry bodies in Singapore.
Ken Jagger
Prior to establishing Balance Legal in 2008, Ken was a partner of Freehills for 8 years practising in the Banking and Projects section. He was also the leader of the Freehills’ national Native Title and Indigenous Heritage practice group.
Ken has extensive experience in the mining, oil and gas, water and transport sectors.He has particular expertise in the development of major greenfields infrastructure projects, project structuring and strategy, land access and tenure acquisition, government relations and native title and indigenous heritage.
Caroline Kelly
Caroline is an experienced lawyer (and qualified Chartered Accountant) with over 14 years post admission experience gained in private practice and in house. Most recently, she was General Counsel at Alinta Energy and her private practice experience was gained at Freehills where she was a Senior Associate in the Major Projects/Corporate Energy & Resources group.
She has had extensive experience providing commercial advice within the energy industry and general corporate environment, has managed many commercial transactions and major projects and has drafted, advised and negotiated numerous commercial contracts within the energy sector including gas sales, transmission and distribution agreements and power generation contracts.
In addition she has managed major litigation including private arbitrations and was responsible for managing significant legal issues arising from the major disruption to the WA gas supply following an explosion at offshore facilities located on Varanus Island.Brendan Kilpatrick
Brendan is an experienced commercial lawyer with particular expertise in property and resources law. He previously worked as an in-house lawyer at Great Southern Limited where he was responsible for a broad range of commercial matters and was involved in the acquisition and divestiture of extensive freehold and leasehold property including the due diligence, contract preparation and government approval processes. His commercial experience includes asset sales, management and service agreements, contract review and the preparation of various licences.
His most recent secondment has been with Sinosteel Midwest Corporation Limited where Brendan has been responsible for mining industry related matters including the drafting and negotiation of access agreements, mining services agreements and iron ore off-take agreements, general tenement management including dealing with heritage matters, new tenement applications and tenement acquisitions. Brendan has also carried out drafting and review work on mining feasibility reports.
Nikki King
Nikki is a commercial lawyer with particular expertise in the energy and resources sectors. She has had in house experience in mining and infrastructure companies and has top tier national firm experience. Nikki’s resources proficiency entails project work, land access, construction, infrastructure, competition law and oil and gas.
Nikki's in house roles have given her experience in gas regulation and corporate compliance and have exposed her to a range of legal issues relating to mining production and exploration including, advising on regulatory and licensing issues and tenement administration in addition to environmental, native title, OHS, commercial and contract law.Jenny Kiss
Jenny is a senior commercial and resources lawyer with an enormous breadth of experience gained in a wide range of industries. She has effectively contracted herself out constantly to various resources, government and commercial entities for 2 decades and in addition has acted for them in her capacity as principal of her own firm and as an employed solicitor.
Her experience includes advising a joint venture company of 17 participants from the coal industry in a privately financed multi-billion dollar infrastructure venture to expand the facility for coal export; and acting as the interface between the State government, corporatized government entities and the private sector (both listed and unlisted entities).
She has lead teams of lawyers and advised on intellectual property commercialisation, on logistics and operational contracts for the mining and resources sector, on corporate governance and company secretarial issues and legal strategy.
Vincent Lau
Vincent is a senior commercial lawyer with over 18 years experience gained in top tier private practice and in significant in-house roles. He started his career at Freehills working in the Banking and Projects Division where he was promoted to Senior Associate and commenced his in house experience as Legal Counsel at Great Southern Limited.
Since joining Balance Legal, Vincent has expanded his expertise in the mining and oil and gas sectors having undertaken secondments at Newmont Asia Pacific, Tap Oil and most recently he has completed a 6 month Acting GC role at Barminco.
Natasha Leigh
Whilst in Shanghai Natasha worked in house with General Motors and most recently has been consulting to MBD Energy Limited (a company which develops large-scale industrial CO2 abatement solutions) in Thailand. Before leaving Australia, Natasha had four years at Minter Ellison in their Perth and Melbourne offices working in their corporate, commercial and litigation sections and worked for several years in the electricity sector in-house with the Australian Energy Market Operator and in the not-for-profit sector lobbying in relation to electricity market reform.
Hilary Macnamara
Hilary is a senior lawyer with broad experience providing corporate, commercial and transactional advice to the mining, oil and gas, exploration, construction and engineering sectors.
Hilary commenced her career at Minter Ellison and was an associate at international law firm Taylor Wessing. Most recently Hilary was a Senior Associate at Price Sierakowski, a boutique commercial law firm. Hilary provided corporate advice to both listed and unlisted companies and was involved in numerous capital raisings (both IPOs and secondary capital raisings) and public and private mergers and acquisitions, friendly and hostile. She has provided corporate governance, company secretarial and continuous disclosure advice to listed companies, conducted due diligence investigations and been responsible for the negotiation and drafting of numerous commercial contracts and agreements.
Eve Metcalfe
Eve is an experienced finance, property and commercial lawyer. In particular she has expertise in the areas of property finance, acquisition and corporate finance and commercial property matters ranging from commercial sales to providing ongoing varied property advice to developer clients. She also has advised in complex multi jurisdictional transactions and has experience in the construction sector.
Eve has most recently worked as a solicitor at Freehills practising in the Banking and Projects division where she was responsible for a wide range of corporate transactions and projects. Prior to Freehills, Eve practiced in the UK specialising in the area of mergers and acquisitions. She has had recent secondments in the electricity and power industries.
Claire Miller
Claire has combined top tier firm private practice with significant in house experience in a range of industries and environments across Australia. Her most recent secondment with Balance Legal has been at Shell Development (Australia).
Previously Claire was General Counsel and Company Secretary of WestNet Infrastructure which exposed her to the rail, infrastructure and energy transmission and distribution sectors.
Simone Muller
Simone has extensive experience in the mining and resources, corporate, commercial and intellectual property sectors.
She has acted for a wide range of publicly listed companies, focusing on the resources industry and has particular expertise in native title, aboriginal heritage and access issues having negotiated numerous land access arrangements. Simone commenced her legal career with the National Native Title Tribunal has most recently worked as a Senior Associate with Allion Legal, a boutique law firm specialising in capital raisings, IPOs, placements and rights issues where she advised mining, industrial and retail clients on a wide variety of corporate issues including acquisitions, takeovers and joint ventures.
Ly Nguyen
Ly has a broad range of corporate and commercial experience specialising in the property and finance sectors.
Ly commenced her legal career at Freehills where she was a member of the Banking and Projects Group advising on major commercial property and financing transactions. During her career at Freehills, she was seconded to the Brisbane, Melbourne and Ho Chi Minh offices of Freehills. More recently Ly was a member of Freshfields Structured and Asset Finance Group in Freshfields’ Frankfurt office advising several major European airlines on aircraft financing, leasing and general commercial matters. Since joining Balance, Ly has expanded her expertise to include the oil and gas industry.
Lisa Ranford
Lisa is a senior lawyer who has extensive experience advising on environmental and planning issues in the context of major resource, energy and infrastructure projects. She has worked at two top tier law firms and her most recent secondment with Balance Legal has been in the approvals divison of a large resources company.
Debbie Slater
Debbie has significant experience in corporate IP management in a variety of sectors from mining to financial services having worked in-house and as a management consultant providing IP management services. She has recently completed a secondment at a WA power utility where she conducted an IP audit, assisted with the development of the IP management strategy; provided seminars to the business about IP issues and IP protection and worked on the implementation of the audit recommendations.
Cai Lin Tan
Cai Lin is the lawyer in charge of Balance Legal’s Melbourne Office. She has a broad range of corporate and private practice experience with particular expertise in the renewable energy and contracting sector. She has significant expertise in general contractual and commercial law, mergers and acquisitions, construction, procurement, corporate governance, industrial relations and employment law, privacy and taxation.
Cai Lin commenced her career at Freehills. In 2008, Cai Lin moved in-house with Acciona Energy providing legal and commercial advice to Acciona’s renewable energy business. Since joining Balance Legal, Cai Lin has developed her mining law expertise on secondments in the mining sector and has continues to work in the renewable energy sectors.
Rebecca Taseff
Rebecca has over 12 years experience as a workplace relations lawyer working at leading Australian law firms in Perth and Melbourne. She has acted for clients in industries including mining, oil and gas, utilities, transport, financial services, manufacturing, telecommunications, and higher education.
She has particular expertise in providing strategic advice and training to clients on the legal and practical implications of workplace change and reform, dealing with sale of businesses, outsourcing, pre and post-employment arrangements, contractual claims, industrial disputation, discrimination and harassment complaints, workplace investigations and privacy.
Wade Taseff
Wade was previously a senior associate with Freehills practising in the Banking and Projects section. In his 11 years at Freehills Wade played a leading role in the firm’s infrastructure and project delivery practice group.
Wade has a broad range of experience in the delivery of major construction and infrastructure projects with a focus on the oil and gas, road, rail, power, water and civil construction sectors He has most recently undertaken a secondment at Western Power and a lengthy secondment at Chevron.
Wade's primary responsibilities have been the provision of legal support in the negotiation, execution and implementation of critical project contracts. He has particular expertise in the development and implementation of procurement strategies including the development, negotiation and analysis of all forms of project delivery documentation and in addition, has been the lawyer primarily responsible for the majority of construction and services contracts.
Kiran Tiwari
Kiran most recently was Senior Legal Counsel for Shell Development (Australia) Pty Ltd with direct accountability for the North West Shelf Venture project. She was lead legal advisor on day-to-day issues arising from the exploration, production, infrastructure and marketing activities, the project agreements and various joint ventures including the LNG joint venture and domestic gas joint ventures formed under or pursuant to the North West Shelf Project.
She also advised on, drafted and negotiated various agreements pertaining to LNG, Domestic Gas and Liquids marketing, and other upstream agreements including lifting and off-take agreements; joint bidding agreements, joint operating agreements; and on possible arrangements on the access by the other resource owners of the LNG and domestic gas infrastructure (sharing of backfill or excess capacity in the LNG, domestic gas and common user facilities). This involved drafting of relevant term sheets, developing transaction structures, as well as negotiating reasonable commercial and legal solutions with the other JVPs/resource owners.
Jennifer Wong
Jennifer is an experienced corporate, commercial, project finance and property finance lawyer who has consolidated her top-tier private practice experience with in house roles at National Australia Bank and Westpac. She has acted for a diverse range of clients in various industries including mining and resources, property development, banking and agribusiness.
Jennifer worked for a decade at Freehills in 2 stretches including secondments to Freehills Ho Chi Minh and Westpac and also worked at Allens Arthur Robinson in Sydney. Jennifer subsequently joined National Australia Bank for 4 years as the General Counsel WA. At NAB she managed the large in-house legal team and provided legal support in the areas of corporate and retail banking, asset finance, dispute resolution and debt restructuring and provided advice on complex financing transactions, varied commercial agreements and in all aspects of property finance.
Prior to joining Balance Legal, Jennifer returned to private practice in a boutique corporate law firm where she had significant exposure to corporate transactions, property acquisition and developments and project finance.
Contact Balance Legal
Perth
Level 2, Suite 14
22 Railway Road, Subiaco
Western Australia 6008
T: +61 8 6380 7600
F: +61 8 6380 7699
Melbourne
Level 8, Suite 4
2 Queen Street, Melbourne
Victoria 3000
T: +61 3 9620 0640
F: +61 8 6380 7699