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Slater & Gordon

Slater & Gordon Lawyers is a law firm in Australia. The firm was founded in Melbourne, Victoria, in 1935 by a barrister and solicitor from Irymple, Victoria, Hugh Lyons Gordon, and Labor politician Bill Slater. Since April 2023, the law firm has been owned by private equity firm Allegro Funds.

The firm is one of Australia's largest consumer law firms, and in May 2007 the firm incorporated and was one of the first law firms in the world to go public when its shares were quoted on the Australian Securities Exchange. In 2012, Slater & Gordon entered the UK market with the acquisition of several UK based law firms, and became one of the UK's largest consumer law firms. In 2014 the firm was ranked as the 7th largest international law firm operating in the UK by revenue.

In December 2017, Slater & Gordon's lenders and shareholders approved a recapitalisation of the company via a Scheme of Arrangement. The recapitalisation involved a significant reduction of the Company's secured debt, the UK operations and subsidiaries being separated from its Australian operations, such that the Company no longer owns the UK operations and the issuance of new shares to the Company's senior lender group representing 95% of the Company's issued capital.

In early 2023, Australia-based private equity firm Allegro Funds implemented an off-market bid to acquire Slater & Gordon, and completed the acquisition in April 2023, after which it ceased trading.

Bill Slater was born to parents of an Irish background in Wangaratta on 20 May 1890. When Slater was a child his father left the family, leaving his mother to raise him and his two siblings in Prahran. Slater attended Armadale State School but left to sell newspapers. An incident in which he was caught skinny dipping in the Yarra River led to a brief period of self-reflection. During this period, Slater chose to better himself and began reading vigorously at a public library in an attempt at self-education. His endeavour was successful and he was eventually hired as an office boy, later being employed as a clerk for Percy Park, a Mildura solicitor. After various misadventures, including an arrest for support of John Curtin, relocations to and from England and Australia, Slater entered partnership with Hugh Gordon—his brother in law—forming Slater & Gordon.

Hugh Lyons Gordon, born to David Ferguson Gordon and Mary Gordon, was a barrister and solicitor from Irymple in country Victoria, who, in 1935, along with his brother-in-law, Bill Slater, founded the law firm Slater & Gordon.

In September 1941, during World War II while in Melbourne, Gordon enlisted in the Royal Australian Air Force. After training as an Observer, he became a Flying Officer (Navigator). He was sent to England where he was subsequently posted to 460 (Australian) Squadron who by this time were flying the Avro Lancaster bomber.

Gordon was killed on 15 June 1943 when the Lancaster he crewed was shot down by Luftwaffe flying ace Manfred Meurer. Two men escaped the crash to become POWs; the remaining five, including Gordon, are buried in Jonkerbos War Cemetery, Gelderland, Nijmegen, Netherlands. Gordon was 34 years old when he was killed, he was married to Elspeth Campbell Gordon, from Ulonga, New South Wales

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