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90k lawyers and a rate shock: What’s hot in law this week (1-5 May)

There are more lawyers in Australia than ever before, but that’s not all we learnt this week. Here is your weekly round-up of the biggest stories for Australia’s legal profession.

user iconLawyers Weekly • 06 May 2023 • Big Law
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For the week from 1 to 5 May, these were the 10 most-read stories on Lawyers Weekly (in case you missed them):

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  1.   Aussie solicitors are now ‘younger, more female and more diverse’
The sixth National Profile of Solicitors report has been published, revealing that four years after female lawyers first outnumbered their male counterparts, women in law have reached another important milestone.

  1.   ‘I feel really exposed’: Slaters files class action against Medibank
Legal proceedings against Medibank keep piling up, with another national law firm issuing a class action against the private health insurer over last year’s data breach that impacted millions of customers.

  1.   HWL Ebsworth suffers data breach
National firm HWL Ebsworth is the latest BigLaw practice in Australia to have an unauthorised party allegedly access its data, with a spokesperson saying hackers are claiming a “significant amount” of data had been breached.

  1.   RBA makes May 2023 cash rate call
In its May interest rate decision — the fourth for 2023 — the board of the RBA decided to increase the cash rate by 25 basis points to 3.85 per cent. Here’s what that means for lawyers.

  1.   Clyde & Co takes team from Gadens
Global law firm Clyde & Co has appointed a new partner for its financial services regulatory practice from fellow BigLaw firm Gadens, who joins with a team of seven other lawyers.

  1.   ‘Right to disconnect’ conversations aren’t going away, says barrister
“Profound systemic change” is coming for the ways that lawyers work, argues one silk, given how distinctions between downtime and working hours have been “obliterated”.

  1.   AI is ‘going to redefine everything about legal work’
ChatGPT took the LSAT earlier this year, and while the 3.5 series bot was unable to excel in the areas of logic and critical thinking, the AI tech is only evolving from here. Here’s what it means for daily legal practice.

  1.   Open letter addresses ‘crisis of working conditions’ at Melbourne Law School
An open letter has been penned to the University of Melbourne Law School following reports of exhausted and underpaid staff and “poor working conditions”, which aren’t meeting union standards.

  1.   Katy Perry found to have infringed Australian designer’s trademark
The Federal Court has found that popstar Katy Perry infringed an Australian designer’s trademark and that the conduct was “deliberate” and resulted in a “calculated disregard” for the designer’s trademark rights.

  1. HELP indexation rate rises not helping law grads
The HELP debt indexation rate has risen by 3.2 per cent this year. Here, financial advisers discussed the potential flow-on effects for law students and law graduates, as well as those looking to study a law degree in the future.

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