page_title: King & Wood Mallesons
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: King & Wood Mallesons / History
caption_attribution_description: The Landmark Gloucester Tower
context_page_description: King & Wood Mallesons is a multinational law firm headquartered in Hong Kong. Its predecessor firms included King & Wood, a member of the Red Circle of leading Chinese law firms, Mallesons Stephen Jaques, one of the Big Six leading Australian law firms, and British-headquartered, "Silver Circle" law firm SJ Berwin.
  KWM is the first and only global law firm based in Asia and as of March 2015 was the largest law firm headquartered outside of the United States or European Union. It is the 6th largest firm in the world by number of lawyers and one of the top thirty by revenue, as at 2015. In 2016, BRW named the firm as Australia's best professional services firm and best law firm with revenue over $200 million.
  KWM alumni include judges of a number of courts, including the High Court of Australia, the Federal Court of Australia, the Supreme Court of New South Wales and Victoria, as well as a former Prime Minister, the President of the Australian Human Rights Commission, and members of the Commonwealth Parliament.
context_section_description: King & Wood Mallesons formed on 1 March 2012 as a combination of Chinese firm King & Wood PRC Lawyers and Australian firm Mallesons Stephen Jaques, following votes in November 2011. The firm uses a Swiss Verein structure, and has four financially independent partnerships: Australia; Europe and the Middle East; Hong Kong; and Mainland China, Japan and the United States.
caption: Gloucester Tower, The Landmark, KWM's global headquarters
exif: {"Image Make": "Panasonic", "Image Model": "DMC-LX7", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "180", "Image YResolution": "180", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Microsoft Windows Photo Viewer 6.1.7600.16385", "Image DateTime": "2015:01:15 00:07:53", "Image Artist": "", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "2754", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 50, 53, 48, 0, 0, 14, 0, 1, 0, 22, 0, ... ]", "Image Tag 0xC6D2": "[0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, ... ]", "Image Tag 0xC6D3": "[0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, ... ]", "Image Padding": "[]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail Orientation": "Rotated 90 CCW", "Thumbnail XResolution": "180", "Thumbnail YResolution": "180", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "15446", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5624", "Thumbnail YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/250", "EXIF FNumber": "14/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "80", "EXIF SensitivityType": "Standard Output Sensitivity", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0320", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2015:01:06 14:34:42", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2015:01:06 14:34:42", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "CrCbY", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "31/32", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "47/10", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0010", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1408", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2112", "Interoperability Tag 0x0103": "6", "Interoperability Tag 0x0112": "8", "Interoperability Tag 0x011A": "180", "Interoperability Tag 0x011B": "180", "Interoperability Tag 0x0128": "2", "Interoperability Tag 0x0201": "15446", "Interoperability Tag 0x0202": "5624", "Interoperability Tag 0x0213": "2", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "15328", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "0", "EXIF SceneType": "0", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "24", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF Padding": "[]", "EXIF OffsetSchema": "3724"}