Bryce Douglas-Baker is a corporate and commercial barrister who advises and appears as counsel in a wide range of jurisdictions and areas of law, including building and construction, contracts, corporations, co-operatives, equity, family, property, and water law.
Bryce is proud of having successfully appeared for a co-operative of over 100 farmers in Western Australia in what was the largest water rights case in Australian history, and he is just as proud of having successfully appeared for a retired pensioner in the Supreme Court of NSW to recover her life savings from a retirement home in a priority dispute with a large lender.
The following email was sent to Bryce by his instructing solicitors following the Western Australia water matter:
“To our knowledge, this is the largest and longest running water case in Australia. The issues, in terms of jurisdiction as well as geography, presented significant challenges for development and implementation of the legal case. As you are aware, the Tribunal found resoundingly in favour of our client, in extremely complex factual circumstances. Our client has expressed a high level of satisfaction with the result, which is due in no small part to your efforts on their behalf.
In particular, our client has praised your contribution as counsel working with a large number of witnesses to prepare volumes of detailed and nuanced evidence concerning agribusiness, farming practice, water management and meteorological factors. Our client attributes much of their success in the case to your resolute, efficient and legally effective approach, prosecuted with a unique and unerringly engaging professional ‘bedside manner’.”
Bryce is a lecturer for the University of Sydney Law Extension Committee and is the unit of study coordinator for Commercial Transactions. Bryce has also taught Commercial Equity, Civil Procedure, Evidence, and Legal Ethics.
Prior to being called to the Bar, Bryce was a solicitor at Atanaskovic Hartnell, where he worked in corporate and commercial law, including mergers and acquisitions, advising some of Australia’s highest net worth individuals and some of Australia’s most iconic companies.
Before coming to the Law, Bryce taught English and Rhetoric at the University of Sydney, where he received a Doctor of Philosophy in English for his thesis titled, Virtue and Kingship in Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale. Bryce has now combined his knowledge of literature and ethics with his knowledge of Law through his strong interest in legal ethics.
Bryce has been awarded numerous academic prizes and scholarships, including the Aaron Levine Prize in Criminal Law at the University of Sydney (awarded to the most proficient student in Criminal Law, a compulsory subject for all law students at the University of Sydney) and the James Coutts Scholarship in English Language at the University of Sydney (awarded to the most outstanding undergraduate at the end of Third Year).
Bryce accepts briefs from solicitors and direct access briefs from in-house and government counsel.