Faith-based enterprise

Faith-based organisations have important stewardship obligations to fulfil and to the communities they serve. We understand that this creates unique legal needs and approaches to their work.

Our Faith-based team offers the full range of legal services required by the sector. We work closely with schools, aged care providers, religious institutions, professional associations, charitable funds and trusts, public benevolent institutions, charitable institutions, societies and clubs.

We take the time to fully understand each client’s mission and offer advice in a pastoral manner that considers the mission of faith and commitments to justice and peace. Many faith-based organisations have complex operating models, provide vast service delivery roles and have large workforces of employees, contractors and volunteers. All of these factors, and others, make it vital for our team to have a deep contextual knowledge of each client’s mission. And we do. 

We are experienced working closely with faith-based organisations’ CEOs, boards and legal and leadership teams on everything from corporate governance to insurance arrangements, property developments to asset sales, and employment disputes to workers’ compensation claims. 

We advise on the full spectrum of legal needs, including:

• banking and finance – property and construction transactions, structured property financing, relief and grant applications, fundraising, restructuring, new investment product and fund offerings, and associated disclosure statements
• construction – building and construction projects, procurement contracts, risk management and contract administration, and construction risk insurance
• corporate and commercial – commercial contracts and agreements of all types, managed services, IT procurement, leasing and licensing, confidentiality and non-disclosure, intellectual property protection, tender packages and outsourcing, financial services and tax-exempt legal issues, fundraising, structuring, governance and compliance
• disputes and investigations – across the spectrum of disputes, including with suppliers, employees, contractors and debtors, reportable conduct and in defamation, trade mark infringement and misleading and deceptive conduct claims, and investigations concerning government grants
• employment and industrial relations– employment contracts and policies, awards, enterprise agreements, workplace investigations, prosecutions and workplace safety
• insurance – insurance and reinsurance, policy drafting and interpretation, risk reviews, claims across general liability, special issues and institutional risk and liability
• privacy – privacy policies that adhere to the principles for data protection, use and disclosure, and response systems and strategies to prevent and mitigate data breaches and enhance cyber security
• property, planning and environment – all aspects of site identification and purchase, plan approvals, consents, licences, rezonings, leasing, sales and related disputes
• regulatory – compliance with the sector’s legislation and regulation, including faith-based regulatory exemptions, and
• will, estates and succession planning – bequests, realisation and management, debts from deceased estates and contested estates.