The team, all from Cridlands Lawyers’ Sydney office, includes three partners, Greg Blewitt, Ken Rook, and Gordon Berner, as well as Doug Stewart, a consultant, Cherrie Homer, a senior associate, Jennifer Brown, an associate and Charlotte Rieger and Bernard Lloyd, both solicitors. Two paralegals, Preetika Gyaneswar and Snezana Roskov, also came with the group.

As a result of the move, Cridlands no longer has a Sydney office, but it still maintains offices in Adelaide and Darwin.

“It’s not the sort of deal that a firm like us has the opportunity to do every day and when these opportunities come along, you have got to make the most of them,” said Bartier Perry managing partner Will Murphy.

In all, he said the recruitment process from approach to the final move took about four to five months.

The new lawyers will strengthen a number of practices in the commercial and commercial litigation groups, including the firm’s banking and finance practice, including automotive finance, as well as distribution and manufacturing.

“Essentially [they] have brought some new clients through the door and they have really complemented the existing practice and brought us additional resources,” Murphy said.

“We were very keen to grow our commercial area and we were doing work for similar clients to the clients they were doing work for. I think also they were probably attracted to the fact that we are well managed,” he said.

“I think it was also a good cultural fit. We’re a medium-sized firm so they weren’t going to get swallowed up by a behemoth.”

Cridlands said it had built up the Sydney practice over the past five years and the interest shown by Bartier Perry was a testament to its achievements in that market.

Cridlands managing partner Richard Giles said the move would allow the firm to concentrate on its key Northern Territory and South Australian markets. They would maintain informal links with the departed partners, he said, as well as strengthening relationships with other interstate firms to ensure their clients had a network of advisers to call on nationally.