About Hannah

Hannah Griffiths is the Head of Restructuring & Insolvency at Gilchrist Connell having attained various tertiary qualifications including a Masters of Law (ANU) and Post Graduate Certificate in Insolvency (UTS). Hannah has practiced in insolvency & restructuring for over 10 years. Hannah is an NSW/ACT Division Committee and professional member of Australia’s peak industry organisation of restructuring and insolvency professionals called the Australian Restructuring and Insolvency Turnaround Association (ARITA) and an INSOL professional member, the peak body in the international space. Hannah provides structuring, restructuring, recapitalisation, safe harbour, insolvency and corporate dispute advice for various advisors or boards of corporations across the spectrum of ASX listed, large corporates, SMEs and NFPs. Hannah solves legal issues for creditors, directors, distressed companies, entities seeking to recapitalise, strategic restructuring services and insolvency practitioners in a wide range of markets. Hannah’s team is skilled at generating innovative and practical solutions for their clients and strive to deliver those solutions in a way to maximise certainly, preserve value and limit the impacts of restructuring efforts.

Hannah has worked with clients across the Pacific (including Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea and Fiji), through Asia, the USA, UK and the Middle East in conjunction with local “on the ground” expertise in those jurisdictions and regions. Separately, Hannah prepares and deliver both tertiary education programs and educational seminars for a range of corporate organisations, government departments and industry conferences. Hannah is frequently retained by corporations to work within the internal credit or accounting teams to empower them to generate tools to better manage financial issues and explain some practical ways where those departments can implement “best practice” to avoid commercial disputes, financial distress and otherwise deal with stakeholders and customers with financial vulnerability or impairment.

Outside the law, Hannah is a volunteer firefighter with the Rural Fire Service (for over 20 years), a regular at F45, a (single) mother to three young boys who are all rugby union, rugby league and cricket mad. Hannah is also supporter of the NSW Waratahs and the Sydney Roosters.

Q:       How did you choose a career in insolvency/restructuring?

My career in insolvency and restructuring emerged from a practice in commercial litigation when a key client with a large customer book required assistance with instigating collection procedures including bankruptcy processes and winding up of companies. After dipping my toe into collection type insolvency work (a small subset of what purest insolvency and restructuring specialist lawyers perform), I started working for several partners who had broader insolvency and restructuring practices and honed my technical skills in both insolvency litigation, restructuring and safe harbour (once that was introduced into the legal framework).

In many ways, my career in insolvency and restructuring grew organically from an early introduction to insolvency and restructuring!  

Q:       How did you get to where you are today?

I have been very fortunate to have been mentored and supported by some fantastic insolvency and restructuring partners and perhaps, more significantly, entrusted by a wide range of insolvency practitioners to undertake their insolvency and restructuring work. I undertook the specialist ARITA accreditation and became a professional member of ARITA. Funnily enough, when I moved from my last firm to my current firm, I didn’t anticipate or expect that I would receive so many enquiries to undertake insolvency and restructuring work from insolvency practitioners in my network.

When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, and the government introduced layers of economic stimulus package and moratoriums from insolvent trading, despite our firm not reducing hours or making redundancies, I felt vulnerable to being made redundant. Rather than host my own pity party (but believe me I was genuinely scared of being made redundant and what I would do to support my three young children as a single parent), I made a plan. The incoming work was slowing down (and this was true to say across the entire market). At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, I started generating regular easily digestible “need-to-know” legal content on LinkedIn based on recent cases that were published. I launched an Instagram page dedicated to similar content @insolvencyinsight. I also started to deliver CPD seminars to our existing clients and prospective clients – so that they could gain an understanding of our technical expertise and gain familiarity with the team. Through the regular generation of content, I started to receive enquiries from new sources of work in the insolvency market and started to receive invitations to speak at industry conferences. All of this was occurring in parallel to being elected by the NSW/ACT Division Committee of ARITA and representing the views of members in that professional organisation, a position I’ve held for the past two annual terms in addition to being a regular presenter at ARITA workshops and seminars.

The restructuring and insolvency team in 2020 initially comprised of 1, being me. The restructuring and insolvency tea” now comprises of a dedicated team of 7 professionals and growing. I’m very proud of what we’ve built as a restructuring and insolvency practice at Gilchrist Connell in an economic climate where everyone’s practice was contracting and the restructuring and insolvency practice was expanding. After a steady stream of work was being generated, my firm appointed me the Head of Restructuring & Insolvency on 1 October 2020 and promoted me to Principal effective from 1 July 2021.

Q:       Any advice for females in the insolvency/restructuring industry?

My biggest piece of advice for females in the insolvency and restructuring industry is to actively seek out mentorship from senior members of the profession to support you navigate your career in insolvency and restructuring.

The insolvency and restructuring market is a relatively small, and sometimes insular, market and in my opinion very simple, perhaps innocuous, mistakes or errors of judgment can be made which can have long lasting effects and jeopardise success in what is otherwise a really exciting and rewarding professional space.

Q:       What has been your most memorable moment during your career?

The most memorable moment of my career to date (and there are a few that I could list here) would have to be running a Court of Appeal hearing in Vanuatu for an Australian liquidator seeking to recover monies that were subject to a freezing order. The experience of appearing in a foreign jurisdiction before a composite bench of local Vanuatu judges and foreign judges who comprised the bench of 5 was amazing and one not to be forgotten.  

Q:       What is one thing you know now that you wish you had known earlier in your career?

One thing I wish I had known earlier in my career was that I was going to experience considerable adversity as a female embarking on a career in insolvency and restructuring which (at the time I entered that market) was predominantly male. There are many hurdles that I’ve had to navigate in my career to date, including having three children without any meaningful parental leave available to me in private practice law firms (a situation less common for females now), and managing returning to work without any family support to assist with caring for my young children whilst managing a busy litigation practice. But as with most things, through adversity you become stronger and more resilient and have a stronger sense of self.

I spoke with a group of young female lawyers in the insolvency and restructuring space yesterday from other firms and was so happy to learn that they have all had such positive experiences from female mentors and in the legal profession generally in their entry into the law to date. I’m also proud to work for an organization with an extremely generous parental leave policy. I’m so pleased to hear that meaningful and positive change is occurring in the legal profession and the insolvency and restructuring industry and I do hope it is a sign of even better things to come!

Most of my friends and clients, who know me well, would say that I’ve always been a tenacious advocate particularly when it comes to matters of fairness, equity and advancing the administration of justice. I also find it amusing (and somewhat deeply satisfying) when I’m underestimated by a male counterpart or told that my legal position is wrong and when the matter is argued before the Court and my legal position is confirmed as the preferred position (and yes, this still happens routinely particularly by older males in the legal profession). I do wish though that I had the words of Joan Rosanove KC (Victoria’s first female barrister and later first female KC) at the forefront of my mind when I was younger,

“…to be a female lawyer you must have the stamina of an ox, a hide like a rhinoceros and when they kick you in the teeth, you must look as if you hadn’t noticed.”

Q:       What is an interesting fact about you?

An interesting fact about me is that I’m a volunteer firefighter with the NSW Rural Fire Services (for over 20 years). I’ve attained several qualifications during my time with the NSW Rural Fire Service, led crews on various Strike Teams in campaign fires in Victoria and across New South Wales. I’ve also trained and accredited many firefighters in Basic Firefighter and Village Firefighter courses.