Member Profiles

Fabian Hoffmann graduated from the Australian National University with a Juris Doctor. He also studied law in Germany where he graduated from Bielefeld University with the First State Examination in Law. At ANU, he submitted his research thesis on Artificial Intelligence and Copyright: Non-Human Authorship in Germany and Australia which passed without corrections. In Bielefeld, Fabian presented his thesis on A comparative view on German, Swiss, and American Consumer Protection Law in the used car market. Fabian is admitted to practice at the Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory and joined Boettcher Law in 2019. Fabian is fluent in written and spoken German. Before joining Boettcher Law, Fabian worked as a research assistant for International Trade Law at the Chamber of Commerce and Trade in Bielefeld/Germany until 2011, and as Chief Executive Officer for Europcar in Singapore from 2013 to 2017. In his previous roles, Fabian demonstrated a strong sense of commercial awareness. Fabian uses this knowledge to advise clients in several areas of commercial law, including Contract law, International Trade Law, Franchise Law, the sale and purchase of businesses, establishing all manner of different commercial structures, corporate governance and Intellectual Property Law. With his substantial commercial experience, Fabian works with his clients to find the best solution for their problems. Fabian continually stays abreast with updates in the law and continues to be active in legal academia. He maintains an active involvement at the ANU College of Law, where he currently works as a tutor and research assistant for Contract Law and Intellectual Property law. Outside of work Fabian enjoys travelling, playing soccer for the ANU Football Club and spending time with his family.

Grant co-founded the financial services and commercial law firm, Holley Nethercote, in March 1995 with co-founder and partner, Tim Nethercote.   Prior to Holley Nethercote, Grant was a barrister and a member of the Victorian Bar from 1986 to 1995, and represented many medium to large sized corporations in courts and tribunals at all levels.   Grant’s practice has been predominantly in financial services law and commercial law, where he assists financial services business set up in Australia, provides licensing and regulatory advice to Australian Financial Services (AFS) and Australian Credit licensees, and those subject to the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing (AML/CTF) Act. With over 30 years’ experience as a legal professional, and more than 20 years’ as an educator in financial services and commercial law, Grant has a sound understanding of the industry and the clients he works with.

Peter is a partner in Gilbert + Tobin's Corporate Advisory group and leads the Fintech practice at G+T. He is an expert and market-leading practitioner in fintech and financial services regulation. Peter advises domestic and off-shore corporates, financial institutions, funds, managers and other market participants in relation to establishing, structuring and operating financial services sector businesses in Australia. He also advises across a range of issues relevant to the fintech and digital sectors, including platform structuring and establishment, payments, blockchain solutions and digital asset strategies.

Ian Walker is one of Australia's leading insolvency and restructuring specialists. He has more than 30 years' experience in security enforcement for all types of creditors, banking litigation, and insolvency, restructuring and work out issues. While Ian 's practice spans a wide range of industries and private and public sector clients, he has extensive experience in the financial services industry. Ian advises insolvency appointees including liquidators, receivers, administrators and deed administrators on creditors rights, their powers and duties and on the full range of commercial and legal issues that face insolvency practitioners during the course of an insolvency administration. He also advises third parties affected by insolvency such as creditors and directors. This includes advising company directors on the governance issues and their duties that face them when the company they are involved in is facing insolvency and also drafting restructuring arrangements.

Jeffrey Chard joined Paul Bard Lawyers in August 2000, became a Partner in 2012 and took over the firm in 2017. He has over 25 years experience and has been an Accredited Specialist in Commercial Litigation for over 15 years. Jeffrey obtained his law degree in 1986 from the New South Wales Institute of Technology (now University of Technology, Sydney) after initially graduating in Electrical Engineering in 1980 with First Class Honours. Jeffrey’s main practice involves corporate, insolvency and bankruptcy matters, acting for both debtor and creditor clients as well as a number of trustees, liquidators and administrators. He is regularly involved in applications to terminate the winding up of companies, termination of bankruptcies and prosecuting or defending winding up or bankruptcy proceedings. Jeffrey Chard has been involved in major cases dealing with the removal of liquidators, setting aside Deeds of Company Arrangement, ATO Director Penalty Notices, copyright infringement cases, and equitable tracing claims. He also practices in administrative reviews in the AAT and NCAT. Jeffrey’s interests include engineering and construction law, intellectual property, technology and general commercial litigation. Prior to 1989, he was an electrical protection engineer in the electricity supply industry at Energy Australia (now Ausgrid). Jeffrey’s interest in technology resulted in the firm advancing its use of software to manage matters and assisted the firm to quickly identify critical documents in litigation matters and economically and effectively manage very high-volume document based litigation. He has been a part of the management team of the firm that documented policies and procedures for quality assurance certification for over four years.