Meet your team
The Practical Law family comprises an external board of advisors and in-house team of legal writers. All our team members have specialist practice experience, and are dedicated to delivering practical and concise guidance to busy legal professionals.
What makes Practical Law unique? Our team members share their insights.
Legal writing teams
Practical Law's in-house team of legal writers has practical legal expertise gained from Australia's leading law firms and corporate legal departments. Now their practical knowledge can give you a better start.
Advisory Board
The Advisory Board advises on the direction of the service and ensures that it stays at the leading edge of practice. The combined experience of Practical Law's own expert legal writers and the board enables us to ensure that our resources are of the highest quality, are of practical use to those working in the field and reflect state-of-the-art methods of knowledge management.

Peter Butler AM RFD, Partner, Herbert Smith Freehills
Peter has practised as a litigator in Sydney, Melbourne, London and New York, and regularly advises Australia's largest companies on corporations law matters, contractual disputes, class actions and regulatory issues.
The former Head of Litigation for Freehills, Peter has held several senior management roles within the firm including Managing Partner. He also spent two years on secondment to Reuters in London as Special Counsel for the Board and Head of Compliance.

The Hon Reginald Barrett AO, NSW Supreme Court and Court of Appeal (retired)
Reg Barrett served as a Judge (2001-2015) and Judge of Appeal (2012-2015) of the Supreme Court of New South Wales after practising corporate and securities law for more than 30 years as a partner of both Allen Allen & Hemsley and Mallesons Stephen Jaques and general counsel at Westpac Banking Corporation. He is an assistant editor of the New South Wales Law Reports, a member of the editorial board of the Company and Securities Law Journal, a part-time mentor to Practical Law Australia, and a former general editor of Robson's Annotated Corporations Legislation.

Rachel Besley, General Counsel, Deloitte
Rachel joined Deloitte in 2002 from DLA Piper where she practised as a technology lawyer and became the firm’s General Counsel, Legal Partner and Secretary to the Board in 2012. She leads the internal legal team of 25 corporate, commercial and dispute lawyers who advise the $1.7 billion Australian practice on all professional legal matters. Rachel is a former Deloitte Businesswoman of the Year state winner and national finalist, and featured on the Legal500’s GC Powerlists for 2016 and 2017.

Carolyn Austin, Associate Director, Knowledge and Practice Support, K&L Gates
Carolyn is Associate Director for Knowledge and Practice Support, Australia with K&L Gates. She leads a team of practice support lawyers and practice support specialists across Australia.
Carolyn has prior experience with two other global firms: as a commercial litigation lawyer and a Know-How Projects Manager in the Know-How Innovations team. She is also a sessional lecturer in the postgraduate and executive certificate program in knowledge management at the University of Technology, Sydney.

Rachel Launders, General Counsel and Company Secretary, Nine Entertainment Co. Holdings Ltd
Rachel Launders became General Counsel and Company Secretary at Nine Entertainment Co. Holdings Ltd in January 2015, after 14 years as a partner at Gilbert + Tobin. At Gilbert + Tobin, Rachel's practice included a range of corporate transactions and related commercial work, across a wide range of industries. Rachel is also a director of Giant Steps, a not for profit school for children and young adults with autism and the ASX listed accommodation provider, Gateway Lifestyle Group. Rachel enjoys musical theatre and cabaret.

James Lonie, Partner, HWL Ebsworth, Sydney
James is an experienced corporate and transactional lawyer, working in the public/private and regulated/unregulated environments.
He regularly advises on transactions and regulatory issues including: mergers and acquisitions; funds management; equity capital markets; securities regulation and financial services regulation; joint ventures; and advisory work on corporate governance matters and securities regulatory issues.
During his career, James has worked on a myriad of financial products and offerings, and was seconded to ASIC where he assisted its General Counsel.

Charles Bogle, Partner, Hogan Lovells, Sydney
Charles Bogle is a Partner in the Corporate Team at Hogan Lovells and has over 20 years' experience as a Corporate lawyer. Charles has an in-depth knowledge advising investors, sponsors and corporate entities on complex and innovative M&A transactions, with a strong a focus on working with financial investors. This includes private equity, infrastructure investors and direct investments for super funds. Charles acts for some of Australia's largest fund investors and, through his private equity clients, also has significant experience within the infrastructure, energy and resources sectors.
Chambers, Asia Pacific 2018 recognised Charles for his ability to "get to the core of an issue both from a commercial and a legal perspective" and to "problem-solve on his feet".

Fiona Evans, Director of Knowledge – APAC, Norton Rose Fulbright
Fiona is Director of Knowledge and is a banking lawyers with over 25 years’ experience. She leads the NRF knowledge and library teams in the Asia Pacific region and is responsible for ensuring lawyers have the documents and training to deliver an excellent service to our clients.
She has extensive experience in designing and delivering legal training courses for NRF lawyers and clients on a variety of topics, especially lending and security
Team interviews