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#auslaw won’t be the same again: A-G Speakman
The business of law and undertaking of legal proceedings could look vastly different in a post-pandemic world, says NSW Attorney-General Mark Speakman.
Jerome Doraisamy
Speaking on The Lawyers Weekly Show, Attorney-General for NSW Mr Speakman said that law – in particular litigation – may and likely will look very different in Australia once we emerge from the global coronavirus pandemic.
“Inevitably, we’ll have a recovery and business and the economy will take off again, but there’ll be a number of casualties along the way we probably won’t see again.”
Litigation, Mr Speakman submitted, will be “quite different” in a post-pandemic world – even though there are some aspects of court proceedings that will have to revert back to normal.
“There are hearings that just don’t lend themselves to remote facilities: where you want to cross-examine a witness, for example, often it’s done where there’s physical attendance and you can eyeball the witness and see them live. But, there’s a whole host of interlocutory steps that I think could be done online or remotely, and I think if the legal profession and the judicial offices get used to that, I think we’ll see more and more of it on the other side of the pandemic,” he posited.
That could necessarily include, he predicted, “not requiring parties and their lawyers to attend in person [and instead doing it] over the phone or on the internet”.
Such evolution is made more likely, Mr Speakman noted, by the ways in which the courts have adapted to pandemic-inspired changes, despite the impact it has had.
“In the circumstances, I think the courts have coped pretty well. The analogy I’ve been given is this: when the pandemic started, our AVL and IT for remote court activity [were] a bit like a four-seater Hyundai without GPS and without air conditioning.”
“Now, it’s a hundred-seater Hyundai with a bit of standing room and GPS. Part of the problem has been though that people still want to ride that same Hyundai and get off at the same bus stop, and so, we’ve had to stagger sitting hours as best we can. But my impression is that the AVL quality has certainly improved and become more reliable in the last couple of weeks, and thus the legal profession is coping as good as you could expect with these difficult circumstances,” he said.
Getting used to a “new normal” on such fronts shouldn’t be too confronting a prospect for legal professionals, Mr Speakman observed.
“Compared with a lot of other industries and professions, lawyers are pretty well advanced with IT. The general public might look at barristers, for example, with quaint wigs and gowns and think it’s an old-fashioned profession, but I think the bar and the solicitor branch of the profession are pre-digitised and IT savvy already. Obviously, we’re going to have to have more reliance on those as we go into the future.”
To listen to the full conversation with NSW Attorney-General Mark Speakman, click below:
Jerome Doraisamy
Jerome Doraisamy is the editor of Lawyers Weekly. A former lawyer, he has worked at Momentum Media as a journalist on Lawyers Weekly since February 2018, and has served as editor since March 2022. He is also the host of all five shows under The Lawyers Weekly Podcast Network, and has overseen the brand's audio medium growth from 4,000 downloads per month to over 60,000 downloads per month, making The Lawyers Weekly Show the most popular industry-specific podcast in Australia. Jerome is also the author of The Wellness Doctrines book series, an admitted solicitor in NSW, and a board director of Minds Count.
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