The Partners take pleasure in advising all staff of the following appointments:
Partner
The Partners are pleased to announce that Dante Gloria of the Adelaide office had been promoted to the position of Partner.
Dante has been with the Firm since June 2011. He was promoted to the position of Associate in 2014. In 2017 he was appointed a Senior Associate. He now completes the transition to Partner. Dante has a very significant hearing loss and workers compensation practice in South Australia. Indeed, he has the largest hearing loss practice in South Australia.
Dante works as part of a team now growing the general personal injury practice by increasing our presence in the workers compensation field.
SENIOR ASSOCIATES
Luke Power
Luke commenced employment at our Parramatta office as Law Clerk in February 2015. He progressed to Graduate Lawyer in June 2015, was appointed an Associate on 1 July 2018 and now takes the next step to Senior Associate.
Luke has one of the largest mixed personal injury practices within our NSW offices. That practice includes workers compensation claims, WID claims, TPD claims, public liability claims, motor vehicle accident claims and occupiers liability claims.
Basema Elmasri
Basema was admitted to practice as solicitor in NSW on 17 February 2012 and commenced her work as a solicitor in August 2012. She joined our Firm in January 2018 in the position of Associate.
Basema also has a very substantial general personal injury practice at Parramatta. She has a large number of NSW workers compensation claims, WID claims, public liability and TPD claims. Significantly she has developed a substantial Comcare practice, a very difficult area of personal injury law.
Kyle McCabe
Kyle practices at our Penrith office. He was employed by Turner Freeman in November 2014 and was admitted to practice as a solicitor in NSW on 8 December 2014. He was appointed to the position of Associate in June 2018. He now transitions to the role of Senior Associate.
The wills and estates and property practice at Penrith also includes our small branch office at Windsor which services our very substantial Hawkesbury client base.
Kyle has assumed a very significant role within the Penrith office in the area of wills and estates and property law.
Alice Church
Alice joined our Adelaide office in May 2016 as an Associate. She has now been with us for about four years with an additional three and a half years’ of prior experience in general personal injury law.
Alice manages a diverse general personal injury practice including motor vehicle accident work, public liability work, workers compensation claims, industrial deafness and TPD claims and significantly medical negligence law.
Her development of a medical negligence practice in Adelaide is of particular significance.
Emma Jahnke
Emma commenced employment with us in our Brisbane dust diseases team working under Thady’s supervision in January 2015. She was admitted as a solicitor on 1 July 2015. She was appointed an Associate on 1 July 2018 and has continued to work in the Brisbane dust diseases team.
The Brisbane dust diseases team is the largest dust diseases practice group within Turner Freeman and Emma plays a significant role in that practice.
In 2019 Emma was one of only 18 practitioners Australia wide and one of only two practitioners in QLD to be named in the Doyles Guide for Injury & Compensation Law Rising Stars. She received recognition for her work and expertise in personal injury practice, specifically dust diseases litigation.
Emma’s work involves representing clients in complex statutory and common law claims in multiple jurisdictions including QLD, NSW, SA, VIC, TAS and even New Zealand.
Alicia Wong
Alicia commenced employment with us on 18 October 2017 working with Sally Gleeson in our Sydney office in the medical negligence team.
Alicia was appointed to the position of Associate on 30 June 2018.
Since joining the Firm Alicia has developed a very substantial medical law practice in Sydney, working with a high level of autonomy in difficult and complex medical negligence claims.
Of particular significance is her contribution to the TCI Class Action. The TCI class action is the first personal injury class action that our Firm has ever conducted. There are now over 900 group members, women injured, some significantly, during the course of breast surgery. The class action is without doubt the largest single piece of personal injury litigation that the Firm has ever been involved in.
Alexander Munro
Alex joined our Newcastle office on 18 May 2015 as an employed solicitor. His mission at that time was to develop a wills and estates practice from within our Hunter Valley client base. There was no practice there to speak of when he joined the Firm.
Alex was promoted to the position of Associate on 1 July 2017.
Alex is now responsible for wills and estates and property law work in both our Newcastle and Gloucester offices. Since Armstrongs merged their Toronto office with us he has also had a role in overseeing the legal work in the estates area at our Toronto office.
As the holder of a Masters of Applied Laws (Wills and Estates) Alex brings a high level academic/intellectual background to the practice of law in his chosen area. It goes without saying that he is highly regarded in the Hunter Valley as a significant legal practitioner within the practice area of Wills and Estates.
Jacqueline Hughes
Jacqueline Hughes is an outstanding young practitioner who works in the dust diseases team of the Brisbane office.
Jacqueline commenced her employment with us as a Law Graduate in August 2017 at the Ipswich office. She was subsequently appointed a solicitor of the Supreme Court of QLD in October 2017.
Since commencing her employment with us Jacqueline has worked in the Ipswich office doing general personal injury work, then the Brisbane dust diseases team before switching back to assist us at Ipswich and then switching back again to Brisbane in July 2019. Since returning to the Brisbane office she has specialised in dust diseases litigation working with Thady and Emma.
Jacqueline has a substantial dust diseases practice and is working with Darren Whitelegg to build a practice at our Toowoomba office.
ASSOCIATES
Stephen Matthews
Stephen was admitted as a solicitor on 4 July 2014 and has practiced exclusively in personal injury litigation since that date. He joined Turner Freeman at the Parramatta office in January 2019 and is currently a member of Fady Dous’ significant personal injury practice group.
Stephen’s expertise is CTP work, a practice area that has undergone radical reform in recent years. He has accordingly taken on other personal injury work including public liability, workers compensation, WID claims, occupiers liability and TPD claims. Stephen is an important member of the Parramatta personal injury group.
Joelle Matar
Joelle was admitted to practice in the Supreme Court of NSW in February 2010. She commenced work with us at the Parramatta office in February 2019.
Joelle is an accredited personal injury specialist with very high level knowledge in complex, difficult medical negligence litigation. She has been working closely with Ann-Maree Pascoli to develop a western Sydney medical negligence practice group at the Parramatta office and has commenced a number of high value medical negligence claims including a number of birth trauma claims.
David Pink
David commenced work with us as Law Clerk and Paralegal on 4 April 2014. He was admitted to practice in the Supreme Court of NSW on 22 June 2018 and transferred from our Sydney office the Parramatta office in April 2018.
Since arriving at Parramatta David has taken on work in a variety of areas including employment law work, industrial work, defamation work, Local Government work and asbestos litigation. He has probably the largest discrimination claim with a trial date pending in the Federal Court that we have ever conducted.
David has an interest in employment and industrial law. He accordingly becomes a key practitioner as we attempt to re-establish our market position in those practice areas. As a Labor Law Firm with a long and proud history of acting for trade unions and working people we continue to practice in those areas. It is part of our heritage and culture.
Dennis Kim
Dennis is employed in our Sydney office.
Dennis is a high quality, personal injury practitioner who has provided much needed stability for us in Sydney in the general personal injury practice group. He has a very large practice and continues to grow and market his practice. He is of Korean background, speaks the language fluently, and aims to expand his practice into the Korean community in Sydney.
Musu Muliaga
Musu commenced with Turner Freeman as a Paralegal in August 2015. He will shorty celebrate his fifth anniversary with the Firm. He completed his Degree in July 2017 and was admitted to practice in QLD in October 2019.
Musu is of Samoan background, probably one of only half a dozen Samoan lawyers in Australia. He is deeply embedded in his community and the guiding principle by which he practices law derives from a Samoan proverb “The pathway to leadership is through service”. Musu is deeply committed to serving the people of the Logan area where he practices and in particular his own community. He has established a very significant general personal injury practice at Logan which includes workers compensation, CTP, public liability, common law claims, dependency claims, TPD claims and income protection claims.
Kerry Gale
Kerry commenced work with us at Parramatta office on 27 October 2014. She left the Firm to start a period of maternity leave and when she returned she relocated to our Penrith office.
Kerry has an interest in wills and estates law and property law. Working at the Penrith office she shares these practice areas with Kyle McCabe and has now developed a TPD practice.
The Penrith office has the largest property and wills and estates practice within Turner Freeman.
Jessica Grant-Nilon
Jessica commenced work with us in April 2016 as a Paralegal. She was admitted to practice in March 2017. She has worked with us as a lawyer in the general personal injury department under the supervision of Gerard Morson at Penrith since that date.
Jessica now has a very substantial general personal injury practice with a very large number of statutory workers compensation, TPD and common law files.
Jade Bowdler
Jade is a young practitioner who works in our Newcastle office in the general personal injury practice group under the supervision of Ben Grosse.
Jade started with us as a Law Clerk in August 2014. She was admitted as a Solicitor in February 2017. Her entire career to date has been with us at the Newcastle office.
Jade carries a very substantial statutory workers compensation and TPD file load in the Newcastle office, one of the bigger statutory workers compensation practices in Turner Freeman.
Lidia Monteverdi
Lidia was admitted to practice in February 2015 and joined us in August 2018. Since joining us, as she has developed the medical negligence practice and she has taken on a variety of general personal injury work including CTP work, public liability work, institutional abuse work and WID claims.
With the merger of Armstrong Solicitors she has also assumed conduct of the medical negligence matters that were previously in the Toronto office.
The Partners congratulate this very large group of young practitioners who have been rewarded with promotions reflecting the hard work that they have done, the contribution that they have made to the Firm and the dedication that they have shown to the Firm and its clients.