About

Lorraine Parrott is passionate about challenging the perception that lawyers are barriers to business and is a strong advocate for promoting their value proposition. With an expertise in motor vehicle finance and insurance she is able to provide strategic legal advice through her position on the executive committee for Mercedes-Benz Financial Services Australia. A dynamic communication style enables her to effectively and proactively engage with her clients on a variety of business risks and opportunities.

Parrott is a firm believer that you must be fully integrated within the business to provide the best possible legal support. She actively encourages her team to build relationships to ensure they are brought into the decision making process as soon as possible, and an early collaborative process will provide so many more opportunities for delivering commercial and practical solutions. Working for an international organisation provides many opportunities for Parrott to participate in a range of global topics; whether it’s actively participating in global practice groups on specialist topics, implementing a global compliance program into the local market, reporting and monitoring legal risks to head office in Europe or establishing networks with lawyers in other markets – all of these factors contribute to providing a balanced legal service to her local business. Parrott is also heavily involved in a coaching and mentoring program in Australia and also within the Asia Pacific legal team at Daimler Financial Services. She strongly believes people are the foundation of any good business strategy and that highly engaged employees are critical to its success. For a number of years Parrott was on the DFS AAP regional diversity committee strategising the diversity program for the various markets within the Africa and Asia Pacific region.

More recently, since returning from maternity leave Parrott has lead by example by helping to bring the company’s flexible workplace policy to life. She is working from home two days per week and “leaving loudly” at 4:45pm each day to help demonstrate that your contribution to the organisation should be based on “output” rather than “working hours”. Parrott believes that future success is determined by how effectively lawyers can collaborate with the business and the more they are engaged with the business, the better lawyers they can be. She identifies that, ‘our team are not typical lawyers. We thrive on the challenge to find commercial solutions for business topics. Our goal is for our colleagues to genuinely see us as strategic partners contributing to the delivery of business results.’