Practising Law in Australia in 2010

Abstract

Thankyou very much for the kind invitation to talk to you briefly tonight on "Practising Law in 2010."

What a broad topic – where does one start? One thing about making future predictions is when I leave here tonight you will have absolutely no idea whether I am right or wrong, and all of you will have long forgotten about what I say to be bothered hunting me down in six years time if my predictions turn out to be bunkum.

A word of caution though, as a soothsayer my credentials may not be all that inviting. When clearing out some old papers recently I came across one I wrote in 1992 as a then Managing Partner for a partners' conference, and I made two bold statements to my fellow partners.

Number one. I told them that the paperless office was 'just around the corner' and therefore we should spend a significant amount of dollars in updating our firm's IT infrastructure, hardware and software. The cost of doing this would be in part be offset by future paper savings!