Marque Lawyers have always done things a little differently. Just ask the team at Sydney-based firm who will tell you rules were meant to be broken. Purpose has guided the legal practice from its inception in 2008, and although the business has grown and evolved over the years, they have never strayed far from their ‘why’. We are excited to have them on board as a Major Partner of Champions Retreat this year!
In this blog, Kristy Dixon, Partner and Head of the corporate team at Marque Lawyers shares what makes them stand out among the pack.
Image: Marque Lawyers
Our team of partners at Marque Lawyers recently revisited how we convey our purpose, which happily we found to still resonate in the same way it has from the beginning 12 years ago. What it means to us when we say “Law, done differently” includes how we aim to humanise law and lawyers and fearlessly advocate and leverage our full resources for the changes in society we want to see.
We’ve chosen to be a B Corp, because really we’ve always been, We support the Champions Retreat because we love the chance to spend time with our tribe.
What we’ve learned in the evolution of our business can be boiled down to two things: organisations that sustain a social benefit purpose are those who learn to embrace the inevitability of change in a dynamic world. The second thing: the law, which is why we exist as a business, is not and was never meant to be merely a set of rules which get in the way. And lawyers weren’t meant to be navigators around the shoals. Law’s rightful place is as a force for social good. Our job is to make it so.
Image: Marque Lawyers
To take an example: like many B Corps, we have grappled with the challenges for purpose-led businesses trying to fit into traditional corporate structures. Ultimately though, whether we, or any client, is a Pty Ltd or a partnership, or has 2 owners or 2,000 shareholders, the ability to entrench a social benefit purpose remains, and the way a business fosters that purpose is what we at Marque think really is the point of (and way to design) what the business world calls “best practice corporate governance”.
We love seeing the world starting to acknowledge this truth and delight in it becoming more main stream, but for us there is also some bemusement in the storytelling of it as new or radical, especially when being retrofitted. Yet, we of course also celebrate the growing shift in the conversation and welcome everyone who sees the light. Ultimately, we hope that the end result is a return to the point of having corporate structures in the first place: to give a business a social licence to operate that endures beyond any one person. Where there is no need to spell out “environmental” or “social” as separate to “governance” in “ESG”. Where everyone is our tribe.
So yes, Marque’s ambitions are shamelessly big. We aim to change the world. Law is our chosen toolbox.
Check us out at www.marquelawyers.com.au.
Want to chat further? The team from Marque Lawyers will be at Champions Retreat – so make sure to chase them down!
