The national commercial law firm of Home Wilkinson Lowry emanated from several legal practices distributed across three capital cities of Australia. Based in Melbourne, William Home began his legal practice in 1897. He was later joined by Arthur Wilkinson in 1905 and by John Lowry in 1934. In Sydney the firm of Heaney & Son commenced practice in the early 1930's, later joined by Jack Richardson to create Heaney Richardson & Nemes (HRN). HRN merged with HWL in 2003.

HWL extended its eastern seaboard operations in early 2004 with the establishment of a Brisbane office. Mergers with Sydney-based law firm, Michell Sillar in July 2005 and Abbott Tout lawyers in 2007, provided additional scale and increased capacity to assist their larger corporate and government sector clients.