Current practice
Nick Ogilvie is a partner in the Freehills Employee Relations group.
Experience
Nick provides legal advice and representation in employment and industrial relations matters. This includes advice on:
- enterprise bargaining and agreement making
- industrial disputes and employer responses to industrial action
- dispute resolution and agreement interpretation
- responding to adverse action and general protections claims
- outsourcing, restructuring and transfer of business
- termination of employment, including unlawful and unfair dismissal matters;
- modern and enterprise awards, the National Employments Standards, and other entitlements under the Fair Work Act and state based legislation, and
- negotiating and drafting employment contracts.
Nick provides outstanding advice from start to finish—from strategy formulation, analysis of risks and opportunities, advocacy and representation in courts and tribunals, right through to resolution. He builds deep relationships, and uses his understanding of clients’ needs and creative approach to minimise risk and maximise the prospects of success.
Nick is a highly regarded advocate and regularly appears for clients in Fair Work Australia.
Since joining the Employee Relations group, Nick has worked closely with many prominent Australian and international employers in the aviation, aluminium, refining, manufacturing, transport and logistics, telecommunications, ship building, defence, construction, and vehicle industries. He has acted for employers in these industries in high profile and strategic matters. They include the Qantas Group and Jetstar Airways, Alcoa’s smelting and rolled products operations in Victoria, Ford, Caltex (Kurnell Refinery), Tenix Defence (and more recently BAE Systems), Patrick, Fosters, Lion Nathan / National Foods, Kraft Foods, CHC Helicopters; Metro Trains Melbourne; Grocon; and GlaxoSmithKline.
Professional background
Nick holds a Bachelor of Laws (with Honours) and a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Melbourne. He is admitted as a Barrister and Solicitor of the High Court, Federal Courts and the Supreme Court, Victoria.
Nick joined Freehills as an articled clerk in 1997 and has worked exclusively in the Employee Relations group since January 1998, in both Melbourne and Sydney.
Nick was a joint editor of a book on Work Choices, titled An Introduction to the Industrial Relations Reforms (LexisNexis). He was as an editor of the Freehills Employment & Workplace Relations Guide 2009, and a contributor to the publication in 2010 and 2011.
Nick is a member of the Australian Human Resources Institute, the Industrial Relations Society of Victoria, and the Aviation Law Association of Australia and New Zealand.
