Darren James

Darren is an international award winning, commercial disputes lawyer. He has 21 years of experience providing advice and representation in significant and high profile commercial disputes, Royal commissions and inquiries across a wide variety of industry sectors.

Darren was the exclusive two-time winner of the Most Influential Commercial Litigation Lawyer, Australia, 2019 and 2020 in the Corporate Excellence Awards, two-time winner of the ACQ5 Litigation Lawyer of the Year, Australia, 2018 and 2019, winner of the Lexology ILO International Client Choice Award for Litigation (Australia) 2018. He is recommended in Doyle’s Guide’s list of leading Melbourne commercial disputes lawyers, and in Best Lawyers for alternative dispute resolution. He is a Fellow of the Australian Centre for International Commercial Arbitration (ACICA) and is on its Panel of Arbitrators, and is a Representative Neutral (Arbitrator, Mediator, Ombudsman & Negotiator) with the Federation of Integrated Conflict Management.

Darren has been described as “stand[ing] apart from and above other litigation partners”, as having “exceptional ability, both as a technical lawyer and as a strategic thinker”, and as “resilient and tough”.

Darren draws on the depth of his experience and expertise to help his clients achieve their commercial objectives when faced with the wide range of legal, regulatory, commercial, insurance and brand issues often associated with significant commercial disputes, incidents and inquiries.

He is experienced in class actions, commercial proceedings, royal commissions and parliamentary committees of inquiry, regulatory investigations and prosecutions, as well as domestic and international arbitrations.

Darren’s sought after skills have seen him:
• Act for over 100 aged care providers in respect of over 200 separate aged care facilities, in relation to their involvement in the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality & Safety, which looked at elder abuse, neglect and rorting within the aged care industry in Australia.
• Act for an industry superannuation fund trustee in relation to its involvement in the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Financial Services and Superannuation Sectors.
• Act for a financier of managed investment products in a class action brought by over 12,000 investors and borrowers seeking to avoid investments and loans in 33 collective investment schemes in agricultural developments between 1992 and 2008.
• Acting for a utilities company against emergency services and fire-fighting organisations in class actions arising out of the Black Saturday Kilmore East and Murrindindi bushfires.
• Act for an oil and gas producer in respect of an ad hoc international arbitration concerning interests in a gas field development in Papua New Guinea.