Our team

Richard Braddock is a founding Partner of Lexbridge. He specialises in international trade and investment law, including investor-state dispute settlement. He has provided advice across the entire range of trade law issues, from tariffs and behind the border regulation to investment and intellectual property.

Before joining Lexbridge, Richard Braddock worked as an international lawyer and treaty negotiator for the Australian Government for close to a decade, leading trade and investment law units in both the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Office of International Law. He has acted as legal advisor and negotiator for most of Australia’s Free Trade Agreement negotiations, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand FTA, and FTAs with China, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Chile, and Singapore. He acted as lead investment negotiator in the Trans-Pacific Partnership and ASEAN-ANZ FTA negotiations. He was a senior member of the legal team defending Australia’s first investor-state arbitration claim. Before joining the public service he worked as a lawyer in private practice.

Richard Braddock holds a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of New South Wales, a Bachelor of Laws (Hons I) from the University of Sydney, and a Master of Laws in International Law from the University of Cambridge.

Sarah McCosker is a founding Partner of Lexbridge. Sarah has worked as an international lawyer for over a decade, including for the Australian Government’s Office of International Law and the International Committee of the Red Cross. Her principal fields of expertise are international humanitarian law, international human rights law, and international dispute settlement. In the Office of International Law, Sarah served as Director of the International Security section, Director of the International Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Section, and Acting Assistant Secretary of the International Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Branch.

She has provided advice across diverse international law issues, from international human rights law and international refugee law, to international criminal law; the law on the use of force; counter-terrorism, maritime, cyber and space security. Sarah has particular expertise regarding the United Nations human rights system, including periodic treaty reporting and the Universal Periodic Review.

Sarah McCosker holds a Doctor of Philosophy, a Master of Philosophy and Bachelor of Civil Laws from the University of Oxford, all specialising in international law. From the University of Queensland, she also holds a Bachelor of Laws (Hons I) and Bachelor of Arts (Hons I).

Damien van der Toorn is a founding Partner of Lexbridge. Damien’s public international law practice focuses on fully understanding client problems and their context, and applying his extensive experience to generate clear, pragmatic solutions for clients.

Damien has enormous breadth and depth of experience across public international law. He has worked in the Office of International Law within the Australian Government for the last decade, leading areas responsible for international trade and investment law, international climate and environmental law, international security law, and the law of the sea. Damien has advised on the development of Free Trade Agreements between Australia and Korea, Japan, China and in relation to the regional Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement. He has served as Principal Legal Adviser to the Australian Government for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change negotiations. In addition, he advised the Australian Defence Force for many years in relation to its overseas deployments in a range of countries, including to Iraq, Afghanistan and Timor Leste.

Damien holds a Bachelor of Arts (International Relations) and a Bachelor of Laws (Hons) from the University of Queensland, as well as a Master of Laws (Public International Law) from the University of London.