AddressGraduate Lawyers – 2025 Intake
We are looking for Law Graduates to commence in February 2025, with the possibility for part-time employment in 2024.
The Firm
SWS Lawyers are a specialist firm based in Newcastle. We do genuinely interesting mid-cap M&A and corporate advisory, challenging commercial litigation, intricate IP commercialisation and the complex end of environmental planning and property work.
We are unlike any other firm in Newcastle. We are not a general practice. We do not try to be all things to all people. We are not an insurance litigation firm and we do not do personal injury, general litigation, family or criminal law. We employ specialist lawyers, we do hard stuff and we do it exceptionally well.
Our clients are remarkable people who do remarkable things. Many are backed by family groups, and all are led by impressively intelligent people and fantastic teams. They require best practice legal services to help them achieve their business and personal goals and we strive to provide the highest quality legal advice - first time, every time. We listen to and support our clients and we are very proud of the fact that we act for premium regional, national and international businesses.
Our people provide advice with ingenuity and candor. We value passion and a strength of commitment, and we look for and reward positivity in all that we do. We like the less trodden path, and we are known for practical legal solutions that see our clients involve us in some of their most significant business decisions.
The success of SWS Lawyers as a boutique provider of sophisticated, high quality legal services has seen the firm placed on several occasions as a finalist for Regional Law Firm of the Year at the Australian Law Awards. We proudly provided bro-bono legal services to the Australian Deaf Games held in January 2024 and we just won the HunterNet Member of the year for our work supporting manufacturing and engineering in the Hunter Valley.
About you
Our legal advice and approach to representation is always targeted at improving our clients’ businesses. We are seeking candidates who have done well at law school but are also genuinely interested in learning about our clients and what really creates value in their businesses. You will have an enquiring mind and you will need to apply it to complex problems.
All our Principals have experience at large national and international law firms and all had the benefit of strong mentoring and training from year one. They value mentoring and make day-to-day on-the-job training a priority for all our graduates and junior lawyers. You will not be left to “just work it out”. Fostering a supportive culture is what makes SWS a great workplace to learn and develop as a junior lawyer.
At SWS we also value work life balance – there is no expectation of burning the midnight oil just to be seen. When the pressure of a transaction or court deadline is looming, we are there for our clients; but all of us at SWS have lives, so we knuckle down at work and keep sensible hours. You can expect to work hard; but you will also have time to enjoy all that Newcastle has to offer.
The Work
We are well known for our genuine expertise. Clients call on us to represent them when the chips are down, and the stakes are high. Each day and every enquiry presents new and interesting legal challenges. Our graduate roles do not involve repetitive process work using precedents and talking to a boss who directs you to the method or system that applies to a commonly occurring set of facts. The work you will become involved in is more likely to be ‘one off problem solving’ that you may not see again for years, and it will demand careful and well-reasoned consideration of the law and its application.
Over the past few years our Corporate Team has worked on several in-bound and Australian based Capital Raising and M&A deals with transaction values of between $10m and $200m. We have assisted clients to raise money for critical seed and working capital and completed complex cross-border private equity transactions. We close 8 to 10 M&A deals in a typical year, and we work on complex structuring, financing and shareholder matters for our clients.
Our Litigation Team is continuously engaged in interesting and challenging work. We are proud to offer our clients litigation expertise that means they don’t need to seek out Sydney-based representation. We regularly provide advice on shareholder disputes, intellectual property protection, construction matters and on a wide range of consumer law issues for clients with sophisticated and specialist consumer products.
The SWS Property and Environment Team supports a growing client base that is looking for practical and timely advice to complete property deals, enhance and develop land use, solve complex environmental problems and prosecute arguments. Our lawyers are involved in complex advice and transactional work and work closely with architects, planners and developers to support our client’s projects. And our planning lawyers regularly represent clients in the Land and Environment Court, when a commercial or practical solution does not present itself.
The Day-to-Day
Unlike in big and mid-size firms in Sydney and Melbourne - as a Graduate with SWS Lawyers you won’t be at the bottom of a pyramid under a Special Counsel, Senior Associate, Associates and other Lawyers – you’ll be working side by side every day with experienced Principals who have a genuine commitment to investing in and mentoring you.
Our Graduates will tell you that they have participated on due diligence committees for ASX listing transactions; drafted and negotiated share purchase and capital raising documents directly with client involvement; instructed counsel in the High Court, Supreme Court and Federal Courts; honed their advocacy on their feet in the Local Court; and visited sites to assess complex environment, planning and property law issues. All of this is done with a strong safety net of team and Principal mentoring support.
We offer our new Graduate the opportunity to:
- Work on top quality legal work in corporate, mergers and acquisitions, property and planning and commercial litigation.
- Gain invaluable experience working directly with Principals in a small, close-knit team, with client engagement from day one.
- Live and work in the heart of Newcastle.
Your Call
To be eligible for this role, you will be a final-year law student or recent graduate and available to commence as a Law Graduate in 2025. There is also the possibility of work in a part-time capacity in 2024 and 2025.
We only take a limited number of Graduates each year to make sure each new Graduate gets the support and opportunities to learn quickly and well. Our current team and alumni, who represent a stellar cross-section of the next generation of lawyers, tell us the recruitment process helped clarify whether SWS was right for them and that’s why it is so important to us.
If:
- you’re ambitious but collaborative;
- you have a strong intellect and a willingness to work hard; and
- there’s more to you than just good grades,
see if you have what we’re looking for by submitting your application to *******@swslawyers.com.au and include:
- a one page letter that tells us why you would be a good fit;
- your CV;
- your academic results (please upload your latest unofficial transcript); and
- one ‘non-lawyer’ referee.
We look forward to receiving your application. Applications close at 5.00pmon Friday, 31 May 2024.
