law

It's 5:30 pm on a Friday. You want to go to the pub. Your boss sticks his head over the top of your cubicle "Big client; important matter, urgent - can you handle it?"

Using the trendy but woefully inaccurate term "oversight" when it means supervision ( see why here), ASIC "urges companies to apply a greater focus and sense of urgency to the oversight and management of non-financial risk..particularly compliance risk. Boards cannot afford to ignore the oversight of non-financial risks." The thing is that ASIC's findings show a failure of awareness of the legal position of directors in Australian companies.

The irony should escape no-one. In order to work towards the development of on-line courts, the UK will play host to delegates and speakers from "over 20 countries." So, video conferencing is expected to work for court proceedings but not for meetings, then?

An Israeli software company, LawGeex, has released a report which it says establishes the principle that its software can analyse contracts faster and more accurately (and therefore much cheaper) than lawyers specialising in the specific field under review. Using the trendy tags "artificial intelligence" and "deep learning," the methodology of the test and its results show good reason for lawyers to think the future might be about to become ultra-tough. Or provide new opportunities to improve revenue per junior fee earner.

...Continued from yesterday

A McKenzie Friend cannot be the representative of record that is he cannot provide a "firm" or an address for service. He cannot be the agent of a litigant in person and so he cannot e.g. issue proceedings on his behalf. He does not have a right of audience, that means he cannot address the court directly, unless, in exceptional cases, the court might grant, on a one-off basis, a right to address the court and to examine witnesses. However, more McKenzie Friends are making applications for rights of audience and are being granted.