AMK Law has been named a finalist in the Kinaway Business Awards in the Collaboration category, in partnership with Clayton Utz – a leading Australian commercial law firm.

The Kinaway Chamber of Commerce is the leading Victorian organisation dedicated to supporting Victorian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander business owners. Their focus is on changing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people’s lives through a strength-based model of business ownership and participation in the Victorian economy.

The Kinaway Business Awards offer a unique opportunity for businesses to have their hard work, commitment and, of course, success, recognised by their peers and the wider community.

AMK Law and Clayton Utz nominated their collaboration in the Best Collaboration category. This award recognises an Aboriginal business who has collaborated with another business to achieve an important, innovative or new solution in the past year.

This partnership has seen AMK Law working collaboratively with Clayton Utz on the roll-out of projects forming part of Major Road Projects Victoria (MRPVs) Program Delivery Approach (PDA). This includes the negotiation of interface agreements with developers and strategic matters such as the development of MRPV’s new approach to engaging with utility service providers.

This engagement commenced in early 2021 and has been AMK Law’s first opportunity to gain experience in legal work with the Victorian Government.

Clayton Utz has since extended its training program to AMK Law, which will further develop expertise within AMK Law. A key outcome they seek to achieve is the creation of job opportunities for young Aboriginal lawyers.

Often, Aboriginal lawyers are encouraged to work in areas like native title and child protection and it is difficult to find work outside of big cities. Large teams of lawyers are also needed to tender for large scale commercial projects.

The CU-AMK Law engagement has overcome these structural challenges by opening pathways for Aboriginal lawyers to contribute to city shaping infrastructure projects, without needing to have a very large and established workforce and, potentially, to work from a more remote community.

The winners of the Kinaway Business Awards were announced in an online awards ceremony on 29 October 2021. While AMK Law and Clayton Utz weren’t the top winners on the night, they’re still incredibly proud of both the work they’ve been doing and the finalist recognition they achieved.

“An important part of our mission is to contribute to the Aboriginal community, and our team acknowledges our responsible approach towards our community objectives.

We were pleased to form this collaboration. It’s an incredible honour and privilege as a small boutique law practice to work alongside Clayton Utz, a top-tier law firm.

We are fortunate enough through our hard work and dedication to achieve this first collaboration. Persistence and effort are always worth it in the end.” Matthew Karakoulakis, Director of AMK Law.

AMK Law hope that by achieving both this initial collaboration and the finalist recognition, it will lead to more constructive and influential collaboration partnerships in future.

They also hope it will inspire other larger businesses to provide similar opportunities to smaller businesses, so they too can showcase their strengths on a larger scale.

“We have further demonstrated a commitment to supporting Aboriginal economic development, our vision in reconciliation and our purpose as a 100% Indigenous owed commercial law firm, which means we are in a position to strengthen ourselves and our own capacity.”

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AMK Law acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the land on which we are fortunate to live and work. We pay our respects to Elders, both past and present and further acknowledge the important role that Indigenous people continue to play within our communities.