Nick has a distinguished 25-year commercial legal career, advising on hundreds of high-profile transactions, as well as founding Hamilton Locke. Nick’s extensive experience and market expertise has enabled him to build and lead a firm that uniquely focuses on the intersection of the practitioner experience (PX) and client experience (CX).
After 10 years in senior management and leadership roles, Nick recognised an opportunity to start with a blank piece of paper and build a firm as an evolution of the legal industry. He identified the importance in leadership of mindfulness and positivity, building culture, driving innovation and implementing a value-based model, leading to the ultimate optimisation of the client experience.
Nick’s research culminated in the best-selling “Summit Leadership” (Wolters Kluwer) – a book aimed at executives and professionals who are currently in, or aspire to hold, leadership roles. He is also the author of a number of best-selling books on business, law and leadership, including “Maverick Executive: Strategies for Driving Clarity, Effectiveness and Focus”; “Penguin Small Business Guide”, “Negotiated Acquisitions and Buyouts”, and the “Australian Private Equity Handbook (CCH)”.
He has also been recognised as one of Australia’s leading private equity and M&A lawyers, including Chambers Asia (Private Equity), Best Lawyer (Private Equity and Venture Capital), Doyles (M&A), Legal500 (M&A, Dealmaker of the Year) and ACQ Awards (Lawyer of the year and M&A Team of year).
Nick also established the Australian Growth Company Awards in 2012, which continues to celebrate excellence in the mid-market, sponsored by Deloitte, Investec, Acruis, Intralinks, GlobalX, NAB and 2020 Exchange.
Previously, Nick worked for K&L Gates as Global Co-Head of M&A. He was also a partner and Head of Private Equity for Norton Rose, and worked in London for Clifford Chance. He also recently attended the Harvard Law School Executive Leadership programme.
