DLA Piper starts to rebuild Brisbane with Dibbs Barker hires

Jim Holding and David Richardson, both partners at Dibbs Barker, will join DLA’s Brisbane office in its corporate and IP and technology departments, respectively. The partners will bring with them legal support teams, containing around eight staff between them.

Special counsel Peter Burden, who is a tax and corporate structuring lawyer, joins as part of Holding’s group.

A couple of weeks ago, DLA scooped two more lawyers in Brisbane. The firm hired special counsel Mark Baker-Jones from P&E Law in Maroochydore, into its planning and environment team, and Stephen Ross, who also joins as special counsel, into its finance and projects department. Ross joined DLA from HWL Ebsworth.

The hires come as the firm relocates Asia Pacific litigation and regulatory partner John Goulios from Melbourne to Singapore. Goulios focuses on insurance, reinsurance, alternative dispute resolution and commercial dispute resolution.

Before DLA Piper merged with DLA Phillips Fox on 1 May, a team of nine partners left the Phillips Fox Brisbane office to join Thomsons Lawyers (14 March 2011).