Decision Making: Reasons, Bias and Errors
213N46: Even a strong, well-reasoned decision can fall apart in so many ways. Learn how to prepare and communicate your reasons in a clear, understandable and defensible way. Avoid bias in decision making by understanding bias in all its different forms, including the importance of aligning automated decisions algorithms with administrative law to ensure fairness, transparency and contestability. Examine the distinction between jurisdiction error versus error of law on the face of the record.
Description
Attend and earn 3 CPD units including:
1.5 units in Substantive Law
1.5 units in Professional Skills
This program is applicable to practitioners from all States & Territories
2.00pm to 2.45pm Co-Chair: Katrina Harry PSM, Veterans’ Review Board National Registrar and Chief Legal Counsel, Veterans’ Review Board; Accredited Specialist in Government and Administrative Law
Professional Skills
2.00pm to 2.45pm Making Better Decisions
- Merits review and making correct and/or preferable decisions
- Delivering justice to tribunal users: current, future and potential and what we need to know
- Improving the quality, efficiency and effectiveness of primary decision-making by government
- The use of alternative dispute resolution in merits review
- Duty of parties to use best endeavours to assist the tribunal
Presented by Principal Member Jane Anderson, Principal Member, Veterans’ Review Board
2.45pm to 5.15pm Co-Chair: Theresa Power, Barrister, 12 Wentworth Selborne Chambers
2.45pm to 3.30pm Avoiding Bias in Decision Making
- Actual bias: the clear and direct evidence necessary to show that a decision maker was in fact biased
- Perceived bias: How does one avoid, when considering perceived bias in others, being affected by one’s own, often not only unacknowledged but often not even perceived biases? Is it possible? Is it relevant?
- Apprehended bias and questioning a decision maker’s independence or impartiality: the test and the evidence required to demonstrate apprehended bias
- Categories and examples of apprehended bias: interest, conduct, association, and extraneous information
- Rules for administrative decision makers, the duty of disclosure, and best practices for avoiding a finding of bias
Presentation prepared by Peter Berg, Barrister, Second Floor Selborne Chambers
Presented by Paul Menzies QC, 8 Wentworth Chambers
3.30pm to 3.45pm Afternoon Tea
Professional Skills
3.45pm to 4.30pm A3 – Aligning Automated Decisions, Algorithms & AI Solutions with Administrative Law
- Topical administrative law issues for digital transformation and service delivery projects including fairness, accountability, transparency and contestability
- Assessing user experience (UX), algorithms and data from an administrative law and privacy compliance perspective
- How legal risk and compliance assessments can be informed by, and integrated with, UX research, user journeys, citizen-centric design and data mapping
Presented by Natalie Butler, Special Counsel, Mills Oakley
4.30pm to 5.15pm Jurisdictional Error Versus Errors on the Face of the Record
- Two species of judicially reviewable error
- What is jurisdictional error?
- How does it differ from an error of law on the face of the record?
- What is the record?
- Why does the distinction still matter?
- Recent examples of each type of error
Presented by Chantal Tipene, Partner, Sparke Helmore; Accredited Specialist in Government and Administrative Law
Venue
The Grace Hotel
77 York St
Sydney 2000
NSW
Australia
Presenters
Katrina Harry PSM – Co-Chair
Katrina is the National Registrar and Chief Legal Counsel of the Veterans’ Review Board, responsible for managing the staff and functions of the Board across Australia. A lawyer with over 20 years’ experience in local, state and federal Government, Katrina led the development of the Board’s transformative Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) Program and in 2017 was awarded a Public Service Medal for her work. Katrina’s ADR team was also awarded Excellence in Government Legal Services, by the Law Society of NSW. Katrina is an Accredited Specialist in Government and Administrative Law.
Theresa Power – Co-Chair
Theresa Power was admitted as a solicitor in 2009 and called to the Bar in 2011. Prior to coming to the Bar, she worked as Associate to Justice Steven Rares in the Federal Court and as a solicitor at Ashurst (then Blake Dawson). Ms Power accepts briefs in a broad range of civil matters and has particular expertise in professional disciplinary matters, appeals & administrative law and equity & commercial matters. She is the co-author of "Equity and Trusts” with Michael Evans and Bradley L Jones (4th ed, LexisNexis, 2016).
Principal Member Jane Anderson
Ms Jane Anderson is the Principal Member of the Veterans’ Review Board. Prior to her appointment as Principal Member, Jane served as a general member of the Veterans’ Review Board. Previously, Jane was a Deputy President of the South Australian Guardianship Board, which also operated as a mental health review tribunal. She was also formerly a Senior Member of the NSW Civil & Administrative Tribunal (NCAT), appointed across its Guardianship and Administrative Review and Equal Opportunity divisions.
Paul Menzies QC
After 5 years practising as a Solicitor in Sydney and London, Paul Menzies was called to the Bar in Sydney in 1973. He took Silk in 1988 and currently practices from 8 Wentworth Chambers in Sydney, Southern Highlands Chambers in rural New South Wales, with Devers List in Melbourne and in Singapore. Paul is a graduate in Arts & Law from the University of Sydney. He is a member of Institute of Company Directors, a member of the CIArb, and ACICA and a practitioner of the American International Commercial Court and the Dubai IFC Court and is admitted to practice in the Singapore International Commercial Court.
Natalie Butler
Natalie has significant government sector experience. She’s advised government and quasi-government clients on a broad range of public law and regulatory matters. With nineteen years experience as a privacy practitioner, she’s particularly knowledgeable about data privacy compliance, privacy risk management and data governance. She’s most recently applied her information law expertise to digital transformation projects, helping clients to maximise the value of data assets in ways that are legally and ethically sound. Natalie champions a privacy-by-design ethos to policy design, customer experience, service strategies and technical solutions. Natalie has worked closely with a number of government clients, especially those from the social services and health portfolios.
Chantal Tipene
Chantal Tipene is a partner of Sparke Helmore Lawyers specialising in government and administrative law and routinely advises the Commonwealth and State agencies on matters involving statutory interpretation, merits and judicial review and information access law, as well as procurement and government contracting. Prior to rejoining Sparke Helmore in 2016, Chantal was the Deputy General Counsel of the NSW Police Force and Manager of the Commercial Law Unit. In that role Chantal provided commercial law advice to NSWPF and worked with the General Counsel to provide strategic legal advice to the organisation on a range of high-profile issues including, most recently, the Martin Place siege.