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Principal flags appetite in Melbourne legal market
A national law firm principal has highlighted the demand set to play out in Melbourne’s legal market, and how the business of law will attempt to keep up.
Emma Musgrave
Speaking exclusively to Lawyers Weekly, Piper Alderman corporate principal Alasdair McLean shared the key trends he’s seeing play out in Melbourne's legal market.
“At this stage, innovation in the business of law will likely continue to focus primarily on how we manage information and documents for clients (for example through electronic case management, electronic signatures, electronic filings and on-line client portals).
“There will also be a continued movement towards more use of AI in respect of due diligence and discovery exercises, ‘smart contracts’ and regulatory and compliance software and it will be interesting to see how much progress is made in those areas this year and the degree of take up.
“Change and evolution is rarely linear and there will inevitably be a series of rapid developments in the next few years where a large scale take up of a number of these technologies occurs virtually overnight."
In terms of the practice areas set to gain a lot of traction in the Melbourne market soon, Mr McLean pointed to the federal election as holding considerable influence.
“Areas such as financial services, health, aged care, infrastructure and employment appear to be the most likely at this stage,” he said.
During his interview with Lawyers Weekly Mr McLean also shed light on trends affecting the corporate practice area specifically, noting the Melbourne market is set to see strong activity continue over the coming years.
Emma Musgrave
Emma Musgrave (née Ryan) is the managing editor, professional services at Momentum Media.
Emma has worked for Momentum Media since 2015, including five years spent as the editor of the company's legal brand - Lawyers Weekly. Throughout her time at Momentum, she has been responsible for breaking some of the biggest stories in corporate Australia. In addition, she has produced exclusive multimedia and event content related to the company's respective brands and audiences.
Prior to joining Momentum Media, Emma worked in breakfast radio, delivering news to the Central West region of NSW, before taking on a radio journalist role at Southern Cross Austereo, based in Townsville, North Queensland.
She holds a Bachelor of Communications (Journalism) degree from Charles Sturt University.
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