Maurice Blackburn Lawyers

Maurice Blackburn Lawyers is proud to be Australia’s leading class action plaintiff law firm. Our depth of experience has resulted in recovering more than $4.2bn since starting our class actions practice in 1998. Maurice Blackburn’s practice is responsible for more than two thirds of all class action recoveries in the first 25 years of Australia’s regime and we are the only Australian law firm to have resolved shareholder and listed securities class actions for in excess of $100m, having done so ten times now.

Lawyer, unionist and human rights advocate Maurice Blackburn founded the firm in 1919, and his values of social justice, fairness, compassion and tenacity remain true to the firm today.  The law firm has contributed to some of Australia’s most influential legal decisions, from the 40-hour week and equal pay for women and Indigenous workers, to the fight against patenting of human genes and the largest class action settlements in Australian history. Our legacy grows as we continue to protect the exploited, free the wrongfully detained and hold the big names to account.

Today, Maurice Blackburn is one of Australia’s most established, successful and respected national law firms, spanning the country with over 30 permanent offices supported by visiting offices across the states and territories. With more than 1,000 staff, we employ some of the country’s best and most respected legal professionals, and have specialist lawyers in different practice areas.

Maurice Blackburn has achieved Workplace Gender Equality Agency Employer of Choice and Australian Workplace Equality Index Bronze Tier status. Major awards in 2018 include Law Institute of Victoria Law Firm of the Year winner and Queensland Law Society Equity and Diversity winner.

At the heart of Maurice Blackburn is our social justice practice. We take on clients and cases to support social justice principles in the areas of civil and political rights, asylum seeker rights, Indigenous rights and equality, environment and climate change, and workplace and consumer rights.

Maurice Blackburn has also built its reputation on the thousands of personal injury compensation cases the firm has run and won, while in more recent years we have developed the largest class actions practice in Australia. Through the class actions department we are the only Australian law firm to have run and won cartel class actions, having done that four times to date. We also have the largest medical negligence and superannuation and insurance legal departments in the country, so across several well-developed and experienced departments, we have a wide range of expertise.

Landmark cases include:

• the Black Saturday bushfires class action, which resulted in a $794m pay-out to survivors
• a Federal court case to prevent the mass sacking of union members in the 1998 Waterfront dispute
• a case against asbestos maker and distributor James Hardie, resulting in a $1.15m pay-out for a Mesothelioma sufferer, the largest Australian award for pain and suffering
• the largest shareholder class action settlement in Australian legal history against Centro Group, which resulted in a $150m pay-out to Maurice Blackburn group members in 2012