Principal

Chris Charles

B.Com, LLB, M.B.A

Chris was admitted, and practiced, as a solicitor in South Africa, England and Hong Kong before being admitted in Australia in 1985.Chris has practiced for over 50 years, mainly as a commercial litigator and insolvency lawyer but also practicing and with lots of experience in banking and finance, company commercial, insurance, construction and property matters. He has experience in all of the Federal and Victorian State Courts and Tribunals, having appeared in them as solicitor or advocate in many hundreds of cases.

Major clients include financial institutions, insurance companies, diverse companies and firms, liquidators, bankruptcy trustees and, of course, private individuals.

Before he immigrated to Australia in 1986, Chris was a partner in the Hong Kong office of the worldwide law firm, Baker & McKenzie. He was also a partner in Baker & McKenzie's Melbourne office for 4 years before joining Phillips Fox (now DLA Piper) in Melbourne as a commercial litigation and insolvency partner.

In 1998 Chris established Charles Fice whose boutique office niche at the time was to market and operate a litigation funding product (called Liquidator's Expense Insurance) that Chris had developed in 1996 in conjunction with the Commonwealth Bank and GIO Insurance Ltd. To this end he drafted the plain English style documentation used by Charles Fice, GIO and the CBA to provide integrated insurance, banking and litigation services to liquidators around Australia. Without this product, liquidators would not have had the means to pursue meritorious claims in the courts for the benefit of creditors. Charles Fice utilised the litigation funding product for half a dozen years, in the funding of very large and complex cases, before GIO Insurance went into "run off" mode and was no longer able to entertain new cases. The product traded successfully with a win/loss ratio of 17 to 1.

Now aged 71, Chris remains combative and a non-"wokeist" and pretends to be set in his ways. However, he enjoys working (law is his passion), shows no signs of slowing down and, God willing, looks forward to practicing and helping his clients for another dozen years at least.

Office Manager

Brigitte Charles

Brigitte is the firm's Office Manager in which capacity she works part time and job shares with Meaghan Deane.

Brigitte has worked as a PA/ Office Manager for over 40 years in South Africa, England, Scotland, Hong Kong and Australia and is the wife of a workaholic.

Paralegal

Charlotte Hartley

Charlotte is a Paralegal at Charles Fice and assists the firm's Principal, Chris.

Charlotte joined our team in 2022 and is a penultimate year student studying the Juris Doctor at the University of Melbourne.

Outside of her work and studies Charlotte is the Activities Director on the Melbourne University Law Students' Society and is a keen social mixed netballer.