Freehill Hollingdale to vote on structure

Freehill Hollingdale & Page is poised to vote on adopting a national partnership structure.

The firm is one of Australia's largest with 218 partners and three partnerships in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth.

But partners are currently in talks to decide whether to abandon the federated structure in favour of an integrated partnership.

National chairman Peter Mansell says: "The issue of what type of partnership structure will best suit Freehill Hollingdale has been under consideration for some time.

"The firm is examining which type of structure, integrated versus federated, would best suit the firm long term."

The bulk of Australia's largest firms were created several years ago after a period of consolidation, via merger and alliances, between independent practices cross-state.

Mansell adds: "The firm will decide whether to stay with the current strong federation or go down the integration path by April of this year."

Most of the leading firms now have a national structure. One of the last firms to complete its cross-state merger was Deacons Graham Jones. It become a national firm on 1 February this year.