By CASEY NEILL
LAW firm Macpherson and Kelley regards an advertisement in the Journal as its beginning.
Jeffrey Macpherson placed the advert on 4 October 1905, announcing that he had acquired William Brocket’s legal practice and was providing services as a barrister and solicitor.
He gave 237 Collins Street as his Melbourne office, the Royal Hotel in Dandenong as his local place of business and Macpherson Street, Dandenong, as his home.
“We say this is our beginnings,” M+K Victorian managing director James Sturgess said.
Charles Hyde Parker Kelley, also of Dandenong, became Mr Macpherson’s junior partner about 1914.
The firm became known as M+K when it acquired interstate firms but Mr Sturgess said there was now a push to return to the Macpherson and Kelley name.
“The current management of the firm are just the custodians,” he said.
“We want this firm to be going in another 100 years.
“We’re just here for a little part of the time and we’ve got a responsibility to make sure it’s better when we leave than when we came.”
In 1972 Macpherson and Kelley built the first high-rise building in Dandenong at 229 Lonsdale Street.
“We were there until 1 March 1999 when we moved into this Scott Street building,” Mr Sturgess said.
He said it was important for the company to maintain a base in Dandenong where it began.
“There is a strong sentimental attachment and there are strong business drivers,” he said.
“Can I imagine a time when we’re not in Dandenong? No.
“The business community is so strong and we feel part of it.”
M+K’s Rob Downing is the Greater Dandenong Chamber of Commerce president, Mr Sturgess has run the Premier Regional Business Awards for 25 years and is on the Committee for Dandenong, and the firm has been a South East Melbourne Manufacturers Alliance (SEMMA) member since its inception.
“We genuinely want those organisations to be successful,” Mr Sturgess said.
“We’re just hanging off people’s coat tails. We’re not the drivers, we’re the beneficiaries.
“We should be out there trying to make sure that this community is as strong as it possibly can be.”
Mr Sturgess was studying a dual economics-law degree with a major in accounting at Monash University when the opportunity to work for M+K arose.
“I played football for the Monash University Blues and one of the partners here also played,” he said.
“He was snowed under with work and said to me one day ‘is there any chance you can come and work for us?’
“It was pretty easy for me to say yes because I didn’t have a job and I hadn’t quite finished my uni degree.”
But he had to spend five weeks in his hometown of Sale before joining the firm.
“Carting hay was my major earner for the year. I’d already committed to it,” he said.
“For five weeks you’d work from sunrise to sunset.”
Mr Sturgess said commercial law was a perfect fit.
“I can’t make caravans or waste trucks or electronic devices but I still find it fascinating to work out how people do it and how they also make money out of doing it,” he said.
“This is my dream job, there is no doubt about that.
“M+K in Dandenong is just an unbelievable land of opportunity.”
