Think Foley's

Emma Heggie discusses ideas for effective uses of technology for solicitors working in the current COVID-19 climate where social distancing and working from home are currently enforced by the Government. She outlines what technologies could be useful to solicitors working remotely and assisting clients to navigate the legal system in light of the new restrictions. She also provides insightful tips on making conferences, mediations and hearings run as smoothly as possible.   Practical checklists for remote working Home office: Have you checked that your… 1) data is regularly updated to the cloud or to an offsite location? 2) back up device is ready to go so if your primary device has an issue you can keep working? 3) software updates are under control? 4) home office has the capability to video conference, keeping in mind that many smart phones / tablets / laptops have a built in camera? 5) headphones / headset is available to keep freedom of movement while you are on a telephone or video conference? 6) home office matches the flow of your normal office as much as possible? Electronic briefs: Have you considered … 1) providing counsel with an electronic brief? 2) discussing the most efficient way to provide the brief with counsel to save time? 3) whether email is possible, or if the attachments are too cumbersome, using a file sharing service such as Dropbox, TA law, OneDrive, Google Docs or Sharepoint? 4) how the brief can be most easily updated, such as by using a file sharing platform as a single central location for all brief documents? 5) generating an index, such as one exported from your file management program, adapted from a court portal, or by the following file naming structure: YYYY-MM-DD [Document Title – including reference to any annexures] [Index number]? 6) bookmarking the PDF file, if all documents are provided as a single PDF file? 7) providing documents in a searchable PDF format or using OCR so they can be searched? File based work Have you considered whether … 1) clients would want to conduct a court event or ADR by video rather than facing delays? 2) a video conference (such as by Zoom) with the client and counsel ahead of an electronic court event or ADR would assist with building trust in the process? 3) in case of court events being unable to proceed by video, whether they would be suitable for mediation or arbitration? 4) some work can be brought forward now to avoid delays when face to face events resume? Some technology to consider: Videoconferencing / video calls Zoom (zoom.us and most app stores) Microsoft Teams (https://products.office.com/en-au/microsoft-teams/group-chat-software and most app stores) Google Hangouts (https://hangouts.google.com/ and most app stores) WhatsApp (most app stores) FaceTime (iPhones and iPads)   Productivity Scanning documents: CamScanner (most app stores) Team communication: Slack (most app stores) Workflows: Trello (most app stores) Checklists: Wunderlist (most app stores) Limiting time on non-work websites: StayFocusd (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stayfocusd/laankejkbhbdhmipfmgcngdelahlfoji?hl=en) Notetaking: GoodNotes (most app stores) Annotating PDFs: LiquidText (most app stores)   Data backup / file sharing iCloud (https://www.icloud.com/) Google Drive (www.google.com/drive) Dropbox (www.dropbox.com) Microsoft OneDrive (https://support.office.com/en-au/onedrive) Microsoft SharePoint (https://products.office.com/en-au/sharepoint/collaboration)

Dr Ian Freckelton QC discusses disciplinary proceedings undertaken against legal and health practitioners before VCAT. He identifies that in such proceeding the stakes are high; claims made against a practitioner can have resounding effects on their reputation and commercial viability, their family life, and their physical and mental health.

Scott Cromb discusses a plan of attack when dealing with statutory demands. He first outlines what a statutory demand is and shares insights into the three key stages in the life of a statutory demand.

Glen Pauline discusses Franchising and focuses on the New Franchising Code of Conduct, some case law concerning breaches of the Code, and key take outs from those decisions.

Angelo Germano discusses Retail Leases and provides an update on recent cases. He breaks down the podcast into multiple topics, including what is a retail lease, the ability to charge and recover outgoings, the changing use during the term of a retail lease and repudiation of a retail lease.

Margarita Fudim talks about ‘aggregation of multiple injuries and the issue of disentanglement’. It is a common topic occurring often in serious injury applications, especially those matters that proceed to originating motion hearings. She outlines what injuries can be generally aggregated together and what injuries or impairments need to be disentangled. Confusion around this topic continues to occur and Margarita focuses on physical injuries in order to help clarify some of the confusion.

Caitlin Dwyer talks about ‘Coming to the Bar’. She addresses the topic in four chapters: Whether and when to come to the bar, how to come to the bar, what to do once invited into the readers course, and finally the first few months and years at the bar. She also discusses the current February 2020 state of affairs in regards to the major steps of coming to the bar as it is potentially currently influencing bar participants decisions.  

Julia Kretzenbacher discusses Ethics for the Criminal Practitioner. She discusses two areas where ethical issues can often arise for criminal practitioners. First, she will discuss the formation of the lawyer/client relationship and how a retainer may be implied. She also discusses ethical issues that may arise when acting for co-accused and things to be aware of in those circumstances.

In this episode ‘Can one have sympathy for the devil?’, Daniel Cash discusses representing respondents in family violence intervention order proceedings who become applicants in family law proceedings to seek orders to spend time with their children, who can then face charges of breaching intervention orders and/or sexual assault in the criminal courts.

Gareth Redenbach presents an update on International Tax by way of focusing on what’s happened in 2019 and the first part of 2020 in the International Tax sphere. 2019 became a banner year in terms of new types of international tax laws or new interpretations of different parts of international tax law. He discusses how the application of the residency test has changed for natural persons in 2019, matters relating to the Glencor decision and transfer pricing, as well as other matters that are of particular interest to large corporate tax payers and those that effect smaller tax payers.