Paula has joined Maddocks’ Banking & Finance team in Sydney following a long career acting for a sophisticated client portfolio, including a large number of financial institutions and corporate groups on a wide range of banking and finance matters. As well as advising on complex corporate finance, real estate finance, acquisition finance and project finance, she also has significant experience on a range of corporate transactions and governance issues. Paula has also advised on director duties and corporate governance issues, and legislative and regulatory changes.

Paula is the founder and chair of the Women in Loan Markets Australia (Melbourne), a sub-committee of the Asia Pacific Loan Market Association (APLMA) which aims to promote women in the finance industry, and has won the Women in Finance, Banking and Finance Lawyer of the Year award for four consecutive years since 2020.

Colin Baker joined Maddocks late last year in the Melbourne Banking & Finance team as a Special Counsel, supporting Partner Ilan Kraus.

Colin, who joined Maddocks from US firm Reed Smith in London, has extensive experience in advising borrowers, funds, lenders and banks on the structuring of debt financings. His practice covers all areas of funds finance, where he regularly acts on transactions involving domestic and international fund structures. He also has deep experience in real estate financings, in particular in acting for real estate debt funds deploying their assets against property assets. Colin has also run comprehensive training programs in funds finance for clients and lawyers practicing in this area.

Co-head of Banking & Finance Ilan Kraus said: “Our Banking & Finance practice nationally has experienced tremendous growth over the past 12 months and we expect this strong demand to continue for the foreseeable future.

“We’re delighted to welcome Paula and Colin to the team. They are both very senior practitioners and come with deep global and local finance experience which will complement our existing experience and provide invaluable support to our existing and new clients”.