James C Edwards

Principal

Corporate and commercial lawyer with 20+ years experience advising businesses in Australia and across Asia.

Ten years ago, James established Edwards + Co to create a commercial, agile and value-led law firm. Combining his background in large law and legal and business roles in multinational corporates, with experience working ambitious start up enterprises, his approach is to identify key issues quickly and proactively, and tailor advice in a clear, communicative and client-focused way.

James’ corporate practice includes day-to-day advisory on shareholder, governance, solvency and other matters, as well as the full range of M&A, equity capital raise and debt deals. His commercial practice covers all forms of business contracts, employment issues, compliance and disputes, with particular expertise in complex technology and media contracts.

James has deep and specialised experience in the commercialisation of data and IP, and has advised and worked for some of the biggest and best known private and listed media companies in Australia and overseas. He has acted on a range of key agreements across traditional and new media assets, and on ground-breaking arrangements with respect to big data, programmatic and SaaS platforms.  James works closely with digital start ups, and understands the kinds of solutions and support these businesses need.

As the digital world shifts towards Web 3.0, increasingly James provides commercial, legal and regulatory advice with respect to challenges and opportunities for new forms of digital platforms, including fintechs selling products off-chain, and businesses using blockchain and distributed ledger technologies to launch fungible and non fungible crypto tokens.

James commenced his career with a decade in top tier private practice in Australia, then held corporate legal and business roles across Asia for world-leading media and telecommunications companies, including Turner Broadcasting and Orange Telecom. Living and working in Asia, he has advised on many significant legal structures across the region, including major joint ventures and content licensing and distribution deals.

James has published numerous articles on corporate and commercial law and the evolving challenges and opportunities arising from digital disruption. He holds Laws and Arts degrees, both with honours, from Melbourne University, and has been admitted as a solicitor of the Supreme Court of NSW and Victoria.

Phoebe Chester

Lawyer

Corporate and commercial lawyer with specialised expertise in intellectual property and contentious matters

Phoebe works as a corporate and commercial lawyer in the team, with specialised expertise in intellectual property and contentious matters. Prior to joining E+Co Legal, she spent the last 3 years in one of Australia’s leading law firms, primarily as part of the intellectual property team, where she gained particular expertise in patents, trademark and copyright litigation, defamation, brand protection, and M&A due diligence. She has experience in litigation in the High Court, Federal Court, Federal Circuit Court and NSW State Court.

Before her admission as a lawyer, Phoebe was engaged as a paralegal for 2 years at the Garvan Institute, and 1 year at its commercial subsidiary where she worked on commercial agreements within the IP space, including privacy, security, laboratory accreditation and structuring commercial transactions for start-up companies.

Phoebe is a regular contributor to the firm’s Disruptive Law Report newsletter, and has a particular interest in media law and the intersection of emerging art, technology and legal regulation. She holds a law degree with honours and an arts and politics degree from Notre Dame University. Her honours thesis on whether memes are eligible for copyright protection was awarded first place in her cohort and third place in the 2021 IPSANZ essay competition.

Leonie Leclerc

Lawyer

Lawyer with expertise in intellectual property, corporate and commercial law

Leonie joined Edwards + Co in early 2019 and works across the firm’s Corporate, Commercial and IP practice areas, using her increasingly broad and growing experience to assist with advisory and transactional matters for the firm’s clients.

Leonie is admitted as a solicitor of the Supreme Court of New South Wales and holds a dual degree of Law and Media (PR & Advertising) with Distinctions from UNSW Sydney. Leonie is on the Dean’s List for achieving first place in Intellectual Property Law and was published in the UNSW Law Journal for her dissertation on patent law and biotechnology, which provides a cross-continental examination of the patentability of isolated gene sequences.

Leonie has volunteered at the Arts Law Centre of Australia, providing advice to artists and art organisations. She speaks French fluently and has lived in India, the UAE, France and Germany. Leonie is also a graphic designer and artist, and leverages her industry knowledge to specialise in IP law.

Romy Grogan

Paralegal