To the latter point first. A key plank in the growth of Maddocks’ government practice can be laid at the feet of former Ashurst partner Simonetta Astolfi (pictured), who joined the firm in 2012 to head its new Canberra office, which started that same year.

“The very first week I remember it was me, one other lawyer and two laptops,” she said when speaking to Lawyers Weekly about those early days as the firm sought to establish its public sector bona fides.

“Now we’ve got a permanent office in a building with our name on it, with our third partner about to start. [Our] staff are incredibly busy. It’s just been fantastic.”

That third partner, Jeff Derix, the former general counsel at the Grains Research & Development Corporation, started at the firm on Monday (1 September).

Astolfi said Derix would be filling a gap in the contracting, procurement, research and development, commercialisation and IT contracting space.

Derix’s appointment follows Maddocks partner Bronwyn Weir’s move to Canberra last year.

Astolfi was formerly an equity partner at Blake Dawson (now Ashurst), having worked for the firm for 17 years since joining as a graduate.

At Maddocks she became the first ever female partner in charge of an office and the first female partner on the firm’s management committee.

“It was a big move in terms of continuity… but I guess I saw the opportunity to… build an office and a practice from absolute zero. It was one of those opportunities that don’t come along very often (if at all) in a person’s career,” she said.

Astolfi was also nominated as a finalist for The Partner Award at this year’s Lawyers Weekly Law Awards.

Making a dramatic entrance

The Canberra office is only two years old yet its performance has already surpassed that of larger and more established rivals.

Canberra has a crowded market with the Australian Government Solicitor receiving roughly 40 per cent of the Commonwealth's work and private firms competing for the remaining contracts.

The growth of Maddocks’ Commonwealth practice by revenue is impressive. Turnover increased by 82 per cent in the Canberra office alone and 174 per cent across the entire firm between 2012 and 2013.

“It’s taken off, to be honest, more steeply and more quickly than even I expected,” said Astolfi.

Firm-wide Maddocks now services three per cent of the Commonwealth’s legal needs, putting it in the top ten providers in Australia.

Maddocks has taken equal eighth place alongside global firm Norton Rose Fulbright (3%). This places it above similarly large firms such as King & Wood Mallesons (1%).

Astolfi said that prior to opening in Canberra, Maddocks had an incredibly strong profile at a local and state government level, especially in Victoria and NSW, but they did not have strong market recognition in federal government.

“To be honest, I thought it would be difficult [to establish a practice in Canberra],” she said.

Since opening in Canberra, the office has won 12 new contracts and celebrated its first $1 million client, the Commonwealth Department of the Environment.

Secret to success

Gaining access to the Canberra market is all about picking the right team and building relationships, according to Astolfi.

“At the very beginning we recruited quite a senior team of lawyers. I wanted to pick the right people, people who had fantastic client relationships skills [and] strong existing relationships,” she said.

Astolfi grew the practice by capitalising on the connectivity of Canberra.

“There’s only one or two degrees of separation between everybody. So, in some ways, it’s quite easy once you’ve built relationships for the word to spread.”

“I’ve had so much coffee over the last two years I’ve stopped drinking coffee because I just can’t handle it anymore!” she joked.

There was a marketing element to the business strategy as well. Maddocks had to find a niche in Canberra to make headway in what was an incredibly competitive market.

Astolfi said the Canberra office also drew on the resources of the Melbourne and Sydney offices.

The other side of the coin

Maddocks is performing strongly in Canberra but there have been a number of recent high profile departures from the Sydney and Melbourne offices.

The firm’s former national chair and Sydney head, Stan Kondilios, left Maddocks and started his own boutique practice in July.

In April, Peter Shaw, the former head of the firm’s corporate group, joined ex-Maddocks partner Peter Keel at start-up consultancy firm Ash Street. Maria MacNamara, the director of business development and marketing at Maddocks from 2010 to 2012, also moved to Ash Street in August.

Keel joined Maddocks in 2012 with his Clayton Utz partnership colleague, Norman Lucas, who is still with Maddocks.

Last year Lawyers Weekly exclusively revealed that David Rennick, then the firm’s CEO, had quit the firm after a mooted merger with the global law firm Pinsent Masons fell over.

Lawyers Weekly understands that while the merger had significant support from within the Maddocks partnership, it did not have the required 75 per cent or above that is typically needed for a merger to be approved.

Rennick is now working as a consultant for Pinsent Masons as it forges ahead with its plans to open in Australia.

Lawyers Weekly asked Astolfi about the departures and the merger but she declined to comment.

In an interview last month, Kondilios was similarly reticent about discussing recent departures from his old firm, and would not divulge whether they were related to the aborted merger with Pinsent Masons.