Martin Hyde
Principal
Key practice areas: Class Actions & Major Projects
Location: Melbourne (VIC)
Martin Hyde is a Principal in the firm's Major Projects
department in Melbourne. He joined Maurice Blackburn in
March 2007 and is currently working on the Centro
class action. He is also part of the legal team representing
indigenous land owners in their Federal Court challenge to the
placement of a nuclear waste dump on Muckaty Station in the Northern
Territory.
Martin studied philosophy, anthropology and English literature
at Sydney University before going to study at Cambridge University
in England. After graduating from Cambridge with an honours
degree in law in 1998, he returned to Australia where he worked as
a prosecutions officer with the New South Wales Department of
Public Prosecutions.
In 2000 Martin went back to the United Kingdom to work at
Travers Smith Solicitors, one of London's premier law
firms. At Travers Smith he worked on a wide range of matters
including the multi-billion dollar Enron shareholder class action;
a negligence claim against London's largest law firm; a worldwide
freezing injunction obtained on behalf of the Mexican government
and a personal injury claim on behalf of a severely injured
woman.
In London, Martin also worked on death row cases on behalf of
convicted prisoners from Trinidad and Tobago and he was a trustee
of the London Capital Cases Trust, the body that oversees final
appeals by Caribbean death row prisoners to the Privy Council.
In 2004 Martin was awarded the YSG Pro Bono Lawyer of the Year
Award by the Law Society of England and Wales in the medium-sized
firm category. He was also a recipient of the Chairman's Award for
Outstanding Achievement at the Solicitors Pro Bono Group
Awards.