Workplace relations law specialist, Megan Foster, has been promoted to senior associate — workplace relations at national commercial law firm, Thomson Playford. Foster joined Thomson Playford in 2004, having worked as an industrial relations practitioner in the energy and water supply industries, and in the Sydney offices of two law firms. Rebecca Varcoe and Anetta Curkowicz have also been promoted to senior associate. Varcoe has worked for the litigation and dispute resolution department since 2001. Having joined Thomson Playford’s tax team in 2003 after working for a large national accounting firm, Curkowicz advises in the areas of income tax, GST, CGT and business structuring.

Gilbert + Tobin has appointed James Lewis as a partner and Tom O’Callaghan as a consultant, both in the firm’s finance area. Lewis has extensive experience in public private partnerships and advising banks and multinational corporations in structured, leveraged and project finance. He joins Gilbert + Tobin from Allens Arthur Robinson where he was special counsel in finance. The firm said O’Callaghan has extensive strategic and practical experience as a legal, corporate governance and regulatory adviser. He served as general counsel to Citibank/Citigroup in Australasia for more than 17 years, director of the bank and Citicorp Life Insurance Limited from 2000 to 2005, and group company secretary from 2001 to 2005.