EY Law

The firm: Globally, EY brings together legal professionals from around the world and offers a different approach to delivering legal services. Working alongside other EY professionals, law professionals in EY provide clients with high-quality, commercial and pragmatic legal advice in areas that complement other EY client services. Currently, law services are being offered in 80 jurisdictions in the global EY network and there are 2,100 legal professionals. Through this global reach, multi-jurisdictional and multidisciplinary EY teams can assist clients wherever they are. This approach has garnered global attention and sets the firm apart from the traditional law firms. As recognised by The Lawyer: ‘What also seems apparent is that they have tapped into a need on the part of clients and a desire on the part of traditional law firm lawyers to offer something broader and potentially better. What’s more, they are just getting started’ (’A very legal coup: the accountancy giants’, The Lawyer, 22 February 2016).

The law team of EY Australia was formed in 2013 with the support of the other EY service lines. As the EY Oceania law leader, Kirsty Keating oversees and provides strategic direction for the Law team of EY Australia as well as for the Law teams of other EY member firms in Oceania. Under Kirsty’s leadership the Law team of EY in Oceania has grown rapidly and attracted top-tier lawyers from national and international law firms who are drawn to EY’s purpose to build a better working world and serve clients as better connected consultants, locally and globally.

Areas of practice: EY’s core practice areas continue to expand.

Over the last three years, EY’s law team in Australia has expanded in size and the number of practice areas and now has lawyers operating across digital, tax controversy and litigation, corporate and commercial, trusts, succession planning and charities, real estate, employment law and financial services.

The EY approach and strategy is to: integrate law with the other EY offerings in a way that benefits clients in terms of execution and risk; to utilise the reach of the EY global network, joining numerous other jurisdiction around the world on cross border projects; and to build market leading teams in the area in which EY member firms operate.

The EY Australia law team, while still relatively young, has made and will continue to make a meaningful addition to the legal market in Australia. Its blue chip client base is a testament to the hard work, practicality, quality and dedication it brings to all its engagements. In addition, the EY Global network supports entrepreneurs and innovation, and law teams in EY contribute legal support to start-ups involved with the EY network.