John Laxon is a Sydney lawyer who practices mainly in employment law, crime and commercial litigation.
John, like the Laxon Lex law office, is hard to get to, being located down the far end of a Pyrmont wharf. That is where John and his talented cast of young lawyers and paralegals spare no effort in solving their clients’ legal problems.
John became an employment lawyer almost by chance, in the course of representing an accused in a murder trial. The alleged crime arose from a fight in a Surry Hills hotel. The star Crown witnesses were a number of physiotherapy students who had been at the tail end of their annual faculty pub crawl, one of whom saw the accused (the head of security for a legendary Aussie working class man and rock star) administer what he described as a martial arts chop of death palm heel strike to the deceased. The critical pub CCTV footage was as typically grainy and unhelpful as the drunken student’s recollection. An acquaintance of the accused was an Executive Producer of a famous Australian current affairs programme, who kindly offered the services of the programme’s editing suite to enhance and improve the CCTV quality.
What eventually followed the viewing of the enhanced footage by the jury, was an acquittal (as it rightly should have).
What followed that was John returning the favour by assisting the EP with his employment contract in his new position as Head of News at the TV station, and after he was handed a sh*t sandwich, what followed that was the Llewellyn Affidavit and the introduction of boning to the Australian workplace lexicon.
So it goes without saying that John, more than anyone, understands and respects the close correlation between crime and employment law. Be it the merchant banker, with the ASIC investigators waiting in the board room, or the Catholic priest wanting to participate in “Towards Healing” but oblivious to the police wiretap, John sees the full picture, understands the ramifications and can manoeuvre through the risks.
As an employment and discrimination lawyer, John has successfully represented many high-profile media identities in well-known cases against all of the large Australian media organisations. From the current affairs producer in a Beirut jail, to the tv news presenter sacked while on maternity leave. From the Network CEO sacked by the eccentric absentee owner, to the cadet reporter shown the door for complaining about sexual harassment, to a good girl stripped bare of her rights, John has helped them all. That’s not all. If you don’t like the mystique – we’d love you to find out more.
As a criminal lawyer (using skills refined as a former Commonwealth white collar prosecutor) John has successfully represented many high-profile accused in large and complex prosecutions, from insider trading and stock market manipulation, to large Customs prosecutions, sex crimes, murder, manslaughter and contempt of court.
In short, while John is hard to get (to), once he’s on your side, the other side will wish he had been harder to get to.