PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE

Legal innovation

Who remembers the good old-fashioned data room with its desks full of folders, jam-packed with leases, licences, agreements, deeds and a precedent due-diligence checklist? 

In the last 25 years or so, the use of automation by legal firms and in-house legal departments has delivered better, cheaper and faster legal services. This allows legal professionals to focus less on administrative, routinised, repetitive tasks and more on solving complex legal matters and adding real value. Benefits include improved legal services delivery, higher compliance and risk management, as well as gaining access to additional data to better determine the future.

Please join us this Wednesday for the last of our Flip Tech Tools webinars for 2022, where, through an expert panel discussion, case study and tech tool demonstrations, we will discuss what legal processes can be automated, how to leverage solutions you already have, and much more. 

The aim of this practical program is to assist the profession to operate effectively in a hybrid work model, ensuring people thrive and deliver value to clients.

You can register here. 

IBA Life Membership

I congratulate Michael Kirby AC CMG on being awarded Honorary Life Membership of the Council of the International Bar Association (IBA) at the Council meeting held in Miami on Thursday, 3 November 2022.

The IBA is the global voice of the legal profession, comprising more than 80,000 individual international lawyers and 190 bar associations and law societies, spanning more than 170 countries. 

Mr Kirby’s outstanding contributions to the law and the community are immense. The award honours his work for the IBA, together with his achievements and service to the legal profession both in Australia and internationally. He has been a member of the IBA Human Rights Institute since 2015, and co-chair from 2018-2021. He is only the second Australian to be awarded Honorary Life Membership of the IBA, after Nicholas Cowdery AO KC.

President’s Medal

You have until tomorrow to nominate an outstanding member of our profession for the Law Society of New South Wales President's Medal. This annual award acknowledges a NSW solicitor and member of the Law Society of NSW who has made a significant personal and professional contribution to the improvement of law and justice in the community.

Joanne van der Plaat, President, Law Society of NSW