Darren graduated from the Australian National University with first class honours in Arts and Law.
As a Chevening Scholar he completed his masters (commercial law) at Jesus College, Cambridge. Followed by a stint as Pegasus Scholar at a leading Lincolns Inn intellectual property set and a Fleet Street law firm.
Qualified as chartered arbitrator of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators. Appointed panel arbitrator of the Shanghai Arbitration Commission and panellist of the Asian Domain Name Dispute Resolution Centre.
For over 25 years Darren has worked in Asia, starting with Coudert Brothers, the first Western law firm in China through to his own independent firm FitzGerald Lawyers, launched in Hong Kong 2012 and branching out to Australia 2015.
FitzGerald Lawyers is on the panel of firms published by Australian Department of Foreign Affairs for Mainland China/Hong Kong.
He serves on the Alternative Dispute Resolution Committee of the Law Society of New South Wales and as member of the Rules Committee of the Australian Centre for Commercial International Arbitration.
Darren lectures postgraduate courses in international commercial arbitration and commercial law.
Past courses
- Lecturer, Commercial Law, Australian National University (ANU) 1995
- Lecturer, International Business Transactions, ANU 1995-1996
- Lecturer, Contracts, University of Canberra 1995
- Lecturer, Competition Law, Sydney University 1998
- Founder and lecturer, International Commercial Arbitration, ANU 2019-2023
- Convenor, International Commercial Arbitration, ANU 2024
- Convenor, Commercial Law, ANU 2024