“The decision to move our Canberra services to other offices was not made lightly,” said chief executive officer John Denton. “But we believe we can provide more depth, resources and expertise from our larger, more established offices.”

The move was an effort to achieve “critical mass and specialist experience”, which the relatively small geographic market of Canberra struggled to provide. Denton went on to say that Corrs’ situation was “not unique, as many large firms successfully service Canberra-based clients from other offices”.

In part, the decision to close the office was motivated by the loss of a number of Canberra partners, and “growth in government work required us to re-evaluate our client service model to ensure we continued to deliver the right level of resources and experience”.

Yet the firm is realistic about the impermanence of modern day careers. Its internship program allows Corrs lawyers to spend time working for international law firms, such as Anderson Mori Tomotsune (AMT) in Japan, Rajah & Tann in Singapore and Latham & Watkins in the US.

Corrs also offers flexible career paths, secondments, in-house special counsel roles, and inter-office and practice group transfers.