K&L Gates’ Oz Ambition – Not Just Lip Service
Global law firms expanding into Australia are nothing new, but those seeking to dominate the Australian law market are less common – K&L Gates is one that has just such plans according to reports.
The firm has been laying its foundation stones in Australia since its 2013 launch, marking a decade-plus presence that many US and UK peers struggle to convert into actual market momentum.
Recent reporting from Lawyers Weekly reveals a deliberate strategy to cement relevance across key Australian business sectors, not just be another name on a roster of global firms with shiny offices.
Lateral Hires: The Real Growth Engine
If you’ve watched Biglaw play in Australia before, you know the old model – set up offices, hope clients come. K&L Gates is doing something more pro-active.
The firm has added partners across corporate, real estate, and tax — not just in Sydney or Melbourne, but in Perth too, where the resources boom still haunts the local economy.
Hiring seasoned operators like tax lawyer Annalie Mitchelson, energy lawyer Tanya Denning, Rob White in Sydney and others and augmenting corporate and real estate strength isn’t just firing blanks in lateral hire fireworks. It’s positioning in areas where cross-border deals, infrastructure capital and tax controversies are creating new opportunities.
This mirrors a broader strategy you’ll see in firms that survive here: hire deep specialists who already know the market, then let them sell it — not the other way around.
Practice Mix Matters
A global footprint means nothing without local relevance. K&L’s Australian team has been active not just in corporate transactions but in real estate and tax-driven advisory work, fields that are currency in Australia’s market, especially with the private credit and investment flows we’re seeing.
There’s no sign that K&L is chasing every shiny corporate mandate. Instead it is leaning harder into key practice strengths like tax controversy, corporate capital markets, real estate, which twork both for domestic players and inbound investors.
That strategy is the sort of pragmatic positioning that might differentiate it from peers who announce offices and then wonder why deals don’t follow.
Global Platform vs Local Reality
Australia’s legal market isn’t America or the UK. Plenty of global firms have crashed or stalled here because they thought “global brand” was a substitute for local relevance. And K&L Gates sits
K&L, to its credit, seems aware of that nuance. Its regional leadership, led by Australia managing partner Jason Opperman, (pictured) has been universally quoted talking about building the firm’s local credentials and servicing clients where they actually live rather than parachuting US practice lines into Oz disputes.
If that’s true execution and not merely talk, K&L Gates could be carving out something sustainable rather than a flash office that churns laterals.
Challenges Still Loom
But challenges remain. Australia’s market is flat in some sectors and experts have noted that foreign entrants often misread local demand. K&L will have to thread the needle between global platform leverage and real local client wins, not just lateral counting.
K&L Gates isn’t doing your garden-variety “we have lawyers in Sydney now” expansion. It’s building an arsenal of capability, backed by targeted lateral hires and practice leadership that actually fits the Australian legal and commercial DNA.
Whether that translates into market share and meaningful revenue growth remains to be seen, but it’s one of the sharper strategies we’ve seen from a global firm operating in Australia in years.
