Exceeding Expectations
Stuart Clark, Managing Partner - International
I'm reminded of an email which I got from a guy who we'd been acting for, he had been the target of an investigation. Basically his career was on the line, his entire future was on the line, and we got an email which basically said that in the whole of his life nobody had gone in to bat for him as an individual with the intensity, with the commitment, with the passion - I think he used the word passion - with the passion of a young Clayton Utz lawyer, and that Clayton Utz lawyer got a result which basically saved that guy's life.
Michael Riches, Partner - Debt Finance
We've had a circumstance recently with a large listed client who's got into some cash flow difficulties as a result of issues with the depreciation of the Australian dollar. We've worked with them very closely, with the CFO and the Treasurer over the past month or so, to actually manage their funding situation, deliver an outcome in terms of a funding profile that's actually going to stabilise the business and allow them to transition through a fairly awkward period and come out the other side of it in pretty good shape. And that has really involved being in a position where you can actually add some significant value in terms of your experiences with the market which you see on a daily basis - I do in my role in the debt finance group - but which the client might not see nearly that regularly. So as things are changing so quickly, being able to provide that up to date experience on what's actually happening in the market is a key advantage for clients.
Julie Levis, Managing Partner, Sydney
I've got a matter at the moment for an organisation where because of the GFC, the purchaser couldn't complete, couldn't get finance, so they started looking for reasons to get out of the deal and they instigated litigation proceedings. Someone who worked for me on the matter, not on the litigation side but in real estate, moved heaven and earth to get everything ready for the litigators to be able to brief them properly, provide all of the documents and then went to the client's annual dinner that night because I couldn't go, then the litigators, who came in on an urgent basis, have just been working almost non-stop since because it was all done on such an urgent basis. It was a fantastic team effort across multiple disciplines within the firm.
