Shayne Leslie is an Australian lawyer and partner at Mallesons Stephen Jaques, a commercial law firm with roots in Western Australia in 1832. He studied law at the University of Western Australia and was admitted to practice in Australia in 1983.
Education
Leslie studied law at the University of Western Australia, where his qualifications are documented as a Bachelor of Jurisprudence (B.Juris.) and a Bachelor of Laws. He was admitted to practice in Australia in 1983, which marked his entry into the legal profession.
The University of Western Australia was established in 1911 by an act of the state parliament as the first university in Western Australia. It drew on a large philanthropic bequest from the newspaper editor Sir John Winthrop Hackett and opened in 1913 with 184 students. In 1912 it resolved to be the first free university in the British Empire.
The university established its Law faculty in 1927, its fourth faculty, so Leslie's law studies took place within a law school that had been part of the university for decades.
Career
Leslie's documented professional career is as a partner at Mallesons Stephen Jaques, an Australian commercial law firm. The firm traces its origins to 1832 in Western Australia, and its Sydney practice began in 1849 when Montague Stephen founded it. Alfred Jaques became a partner in 1878, and the Sydney firm was known as Stephen Jaques & Stephen until the early 1980s.
The firm expanded through mergers during the 1970s and 1980s. In 1974 it merged with Davies Bailey & Cater in Canberra, and in 1976 it opened a London office. Four years later it merged with Stone James of Perth, a firm established in 1832. In 1987 the combined firm merged with the Melbourne-based Mallesons, creating Mallesons Stephen Jaques, which the firm describes as the first truly national, integrated law firm in Australia. It entered Asia through Hong Kong in 1989.
In 2012 the firm combined with the Chinese firm King & Wood PRC Lawyers to form King & Wood Mallesons. That partnership was dissolved on 30 March 2026, and the Australian practice reverted to the Mallesons name.
