Having sponsored the event for four years in Sydney, the firm was instrumental in bringing the exhibition to Cottesloe Beach in Perth, where it has been sponsor for an additional two years. Allens’ managing partner, Tom Poulton, said the firm was attracted to SXS because of its high profile and unusual appeal.

“Sculpture by the Sea fits our brand of excellence,” Poulton said. “It is arts based and, in some small way, gives back to broad sections of the community.”

According to Poulton, SXS provides the firm “with excellent profiling opportunities, especially so in the first year in Perth. It has been very popular and warmly received by the public and our clients love it”.

SXS’s founder and director, David Handley, said it was fair to say that the Cottesloe exhibition would not have launched when it did had Allens not been onboard.

“In that sense, it was a great example of corporate philanthropy, and also, [of] the marketing people at Allens, thinking outside the square,” he said. “They’ve been fantastic. They came on as a sponsor when we approached them … and the relationship grew.”

Poulton said that the timing of the exhibition coincided well with the launch of Allens in Perth.

“We were looking for a major event to sponsor in Perth to profile our firm further, which was fairly new to WA,” he said. “[Allens] supports the arts nationally and we wanted to do something that had not been done in WA before — something creative, different, with clear thinking.”

Handley considers Allens involvement with SXS to be “a very broad way of thinking about the relationship of the firm to Perth, [as well as] the firm within a national context and the firm as a member of the Perth community”.

And the SXS founder knows Allens well, having worked for the firm as a paralegal at one stage earlier on his career.

“I think there’s always a few chuckles that I’d once been a paralegal there, and I say, ‘the quality of Allens’ legal advice and legal services is no doubt better than if I’d stayed’.”

See The Busy Lawyer on page 36