History

History of the Firm

Marsdens Law Group was founded by John Marsden as a one man practice in 1968. He commenced the practice physically on the site that we now occupy on the corner of Queen and Dumaresq Streets, Campbelltown. John occupied the back room of Warby’s Bakery. There was only he and his then first secretary Terry Turner.

In the first couple of years of the practice John made a name by taking on the establishment. On behalf of the Australian Hotels Association led by John & Jim Marsden’s father Guy, he led the challenge against the granting of a licence to the then emerging Campbelltown Catholic Club. Obviously that challenge was unsuccessful but it made a name for John and lost a lot of friends for John & Jim’s parents who owned Lacks Hotel.

John challenged the local Police Sargent on his practices which were then typically 1968 Police practices. Again, John made a name for himself but not a lot of friends within the local establishment.

At the same time as he was doing this he was out in the community. He was personally teaching swimming at St Johns School where he attended. He was President of the Swimming Club, became President of the Kangaroos Football Club, became an advocate of the arts in Campbelltown and was eventually responsible along with others for the establishment of the Campbelltown Bicentennial Art Gallery.

The two main people working with him at that time were the soon to become Premier John Fahey and Rod Smith. The firm at one stage was known as Marsden Smith & Associates.

John’s brother Jim Marsden then joined the firm in 1973. Jim had always made a promise that he didn’t want to join John in practice – they were like chalk and cheese. John didn’t approach Jim however! John Fahey and Rod Smith approached Jim on John’s behalf. After lots of discussions and offering to double Jim’s money plus a car he agreed to join John. Jim did so at the Ingleburn office, he then went to our Liverpool office when Rod Smith moved from there to Campbelltown and then went to Campbelltown when Rod Smith left the firm. John and Jim had their offices at the opposite ends of the building but from there on they started to develop a great working relationship.

John and Jim were pretty good at being lawyers and very good at getting clients. It wasn’t until John Adam joined the firm in 1980 and later decided to become Managing Partner that they were able to use their combined skills with John Adam aka Addo taking over the management. This gave John and Jim the freedom to do what they did best and Addo the ability to do what he did best – manage the business.

During the early days John Marsden wanted to expand. However, his expansion was really all about geographical expansion. At one stage we had 9 offices from Mittagong to Sydney with always our base being at Campbelltown and it still is.

Our late Partner Ken Searle, ran our Camden office for many years commencing in 1986. First in John Street, then moving to Argyle Street, Camden after amalgamating with John Fahey, Searle & Co. Ken was always a community man, he was actively involved in the Camden area for approximately 40 years.

Retired Partner, Drew Percival ran our Liverpool office for over 20 years, Drew was an integral part of our team for many years. Our Liverpool office then amalgamated with John Henshaw at Henshaws Late Night Lawyers in 2007. After Drew’s retirement in late 2015, Domenic Mosca, Partner who successfully ran his own law firm in Liverpool for many years took over the running of our Liverpool office.

However, in the mid to late 80s we all recognised that geographical expansion wasn’t what it was about. It was more about developing our skills to the extent where we could have specialised areas of law. This was unheard of out of the Sydney CBD.

Now we have specialist areas in Land and Environment, Property, Commercial Law, Commercial Litigation and of course the mums and dads basic areas of law including Conveyancing, Estate Planning, Family Law, Criminal Law and Personal Injury.

John and Jim Marsden were born and raised in a pub in Campbelltown. Their parents made really good beer but more importantly they involved themselves in the community and they realised the importance of service. From a lawyers point of view of course we’ve got to have the legal skills but if you don’t have community and community in a very genuine sense and if you don’t have service then you are not going to grow and you’re not going to sustain any growth that you might have anyway. Those elements of service and a sense of community are two of the major factors contributing to our success which have been passed onto the rest of the firm.

There have been many lawyers come and go at Marsdens. Most have gone on to bigger and better things. A lot have stayed. Another factor that John, Jim and subsequent Partners have always believed is important is the attachment to the locality. Originally the attachment to Campbelltown but as the area grew the attachment to Macarthur and South West Sydney. We try to employ our people from local education establishments and local schools. People who have been brought up in the area, people who are grounded. That way they have a better understanding of what is going on in the community, which then follows with a better understanding of client’s problems.

The view that we’ve always taken about being in a position to give back to the community is a view that has been maintained by us from the start and to this day 50 years later. It has put us in good stead for another 50 years.