Litigation and Evidence: Preparing and Managing Your Case
Analyse how to effectively prepare and manage your litigation matters & gain your core CPD units. Master how to manage your files to optimise costs. Examine ethics in pleadings, pre-trial procedures & evidence management, and perfect your litigation project management skills. In the afternoon, take a deep dive into traversing the best evidence to support your case. Hone your strategies regarding the admissibility of evidence, disclosure, and maximising evidence from experts and lay witnesses. 218Q01
Description
Attend and earn 7 CPD units including:
3 units in Legal Knowledge
1 unit in Practical Legal Ethics
1.5 units in Practice Management & Business Skills
1.5 units in Professional Skills
This program is applicable to practitioners from all States & Territories
Session 1
Effectively Preparing & Managing Your Case
Chair: Duke Myrteza, Solicitor Director, Australian Law Partners
Practical Legal Ethics
9.00am to 10.00am Ethical Obligations when Pleading a Case
- Threshold to ensure facts support your case
- Pleading fraud and unusual causes of action: higher test
- The virtues of 'The Smell Test' Does it feel right?
- Managing client expectations
Presented by Mark Martin QC, Level 10, Inns of Court
Practice Management & Business Skills
10.00am to 10.45am Managing Files to Optimise Costs and Other Issues
- Costs agreements and billing
- Solicitor/client costs: complying with all requirements and the consequences of non-compliance
- Best practices and common mistakes
- Cost compliance issues in multi-jurisdictional practices
- Crash course in costing: costs orders and an overview of costs assessments
Presented by Stephen Hartwell, Barrister, Briggs Lane Chambers
10.45am to 11.00am Morning Tea
Professional Skills
11.00am to 11.45am Pre-Trial Procedures and Evidence Management: Tips and Traps
- Pre-Trial evidence exchanges vs ‘at trial’ evidence
- Issuing and resisting subpoenas
- Notices to admit facts and documents: consequences of a failure to respond and how to remedy a failure to respond
- Developing a case theory
Presented by Brett Heath, In-House Advocate, Carter Newell
Practice Management & Business Skills
11.45am to 12.30pm Project Management of Commercial Litigation
- Preparing your client for litigation
- Psychology of litigation and roadblocks to settling
- Dealing with your client’s concerns: costs, time, uncertainty
- Project management tools to employ
Presented by Sarah Davies, Director, Sarah Davies Legal
Professional Skills
12.30pm to 1.15pm Panel Discussion: Tips, Traps and Hypothetical: Putting it in Practice
- Explore some common traps in conducting litigation
- Take away important tips and key takeaways that you can put immediately in your practice
Panellists
Duke Myrteza, Principal, Australian Law Partners
Alex Nelson, Barrister, Sir Harry Gibbs Chambers
Sarah Davies, Director, Sarah Davies Legal
Session 2
Getting the Most Out of Your Evidence
Chair: Timothy Matthews MBE QC, Inns of Court
2.00pm to 2.45pm Assessing the Admissibility of Evidence
- Relevance, admissibility and weight
- Key principles of the admissibility of evidence
- Common hurdles to admissibility
- Hardworking strategies for getting your evidence in
- Dealing with challenges from opposing counsel and queries from the bench
- Practical hypothetical
Presented by Nola Pearce, Barrister, Quay 11 Chambers
2.45pm to 3.30pm Disclosure: What Do You Really Have to Disclose to the Other Side?
- Analysis of key legislation and obligations
- Understanding important standards and requirements
- Tensions with privilege obligations
- Practical examples and hypotheticals
Presented by Allana Agnew, Director, Agnew Litigation & HR; Accredited Specialist in Commercial Litigation
3.30pm to 3.45pm Afternoon Tea
3.45pm to 4.30pm Maximising Expert Reports and Expert Evidence: Getting the Best Out of Expert Witnesses
- Selection of experts, effective instructions and timeliness
- Privilege over communications with experts and draft reports
- Maximising the admissibility and probative value of their report
- The fine line between pre-trial conferences and coaching
Presented by Anand Shah, Barrister, Brisbane Chambers
4.30pm to 5.15pm Lay Witness Evidence
- Approaching and interviewing lay witnesses
- Working with difficult/reluctant lay witnesses
- Managing lay witnesses
- Useful witness proofs; effective witness statements and affidavits
- Obligations that arise with lay witnesses
Presented by Melanie Hindman QC and Andrew Schriiffer, Barrister, Northbank Chambers
Presenters
Duke Myrteza
Duke Myrteza is the founder of Australian Law Partners and an accredited specialist in commercial litigation. Duke was admitted to the Supreme Court of Queensland in 1991 and has been practising since then primarily in the area of commercial litigation including banking and finance, intellectual property and insolvency disputes. He has acted for clients in the High Court, Federal Court, State Courts including at appellate level with resounding success including obtaining a freezing order in Queensland for $171,000,000, being one of the highest amounts ever awarded by the Supreme Court of Queensland.
Stephen Hartwell
Stephen Hartwell commenced working in the legal profession in 1987. Stephen practiced as a solicitor for 26 years before going to the Bar in 2016. Prior to going to the Bar, Stephen was the principle of Hartwell Lawyers and the Director of Hartwell legal Costs. Stephen was appointed in 1998 by the Solicitors Complaints Tribunal pursuant to the provisions of the Queensland Law Society Act 1952 as a costs assessor to the tribunal. In 2007 he was appointed to the Courts interim panel of costs assessors to conduct costs assessment pursuant to Practice Direction 7 of 2007 and in December of that year he was appointed pursuant to rule 743 UCPR to the Courts panel of costs assessors.
Mark Martin KC
Martin KC practices in the following areas: Commercial, Property and Insolvency and Defamation. He was admitted as barrister in 1987 and Queen's Counsel in 2013. Qualification includes B Com LLB. He has done Pro Bono Work for the Honorary Counsel for QJRU and Queensland Reds and Wallabies. Mark is married with 4 children; boys aged 26, 25 and 22. and a girl aged 18. His interest includes participating in Triathlon, mountain bike riding and snow skiing.
Brett Heath
Brett Heath is an inhouse advocate at Carter Newell Lawyers and has specialised in commercial and insurance litigation since 1988. Having worked inhouse for a specialist professional liability insurer, and completed the Bar Practice Course, Brett now conducts professional liability, large-scale public liability, director’s and officers’ liability, construction and employment litigation. As Carter Newell’s inhouse advocate, Brett appears in all courts and tribunals for the firm’s clients. Brett is a regular speaker on continuing professional development issues, particularly with respect to risk prevention for professionals, developments in insurance and real estate law, commercial drafting techniques and mediation and litigation strategies.
Sarah Davies
Sarah Davies is a director of Sarah Davies Legal Pty Ltd, and specializes in commercial litigation for clients involved in agribusiness, financial services, property development and building & construction matters. She is an accredited specialist in commercial litigation, having received the highest achievement award when she completed her accreditation in 2010. She has experience with disputes involving commercial contracts, property transactions, joint ventures, corporations, trusts and managed investment schemes, public offer documents and issues relating to the provision of financial services. Sarah also chairs the board of a mutual banking institution.
Alex Nelson
Alex Nelson is a barrister practising primarily in defamation litigation but he has maintained a part of his practice in criminal law jury trials and sentencing in the superior courts. He has more than 20 years of experience in the law, commencing as a full time Army Legal Officer before moving into private practice as a solicitor in a commercial law firm. That was followed by 8 years as principal of his own law firm undertaking work in commercial litigation, crime, and family law. He was called to the bar in 2010 and since that time he has enjoyed great success in commercial litigation, criminal law and defamation.
Timothy Matthews MBE QC
Tim Matthews is the senior barrister with Chambers at Level 15 of the Inns of Court. Tim is one of the third generation of the Matthews family to practice law in Queensland after his father, the late Honourable RH Matthews QC (Supreme Court Judge, 1967-1989) before him and his grandfather, the late Honourable BH Matthews (Supreme Court Judge, 1945-1961) before him. He has a wide practice in many areas but particular interests in common law, building and construction cases and alternative dispute resolution. He is a Nationally Accredited Mediator and an extremely experienced appellate and trial Barrister. Tim was appointed a part time Sessional Member of QCAT in December 2019. On 9 October 2020 Tim was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List, for services to the National Judiciary of the Solomon Islands.
Nola Pearce
Nola Pearce has nearly twenty years’ experience formerly as a solicitor and now as a commercial barrister in successfully defending professional negligence claims and conduct charges against barristers, judges, solicitors and a range of medical, financial services and construction professionals. She is often called on to advise and represent professional regulatory authorities (or practitioners subject to their authority), including those of the legal profession, and presently is advising a major public interest client about ethical issues in a prominent statutory authority. She is the immediate past Chair of the Queensland Law Society’s Ethics Committee, and contributed to the Society’s first edition commentary to the Australian Solicitors’ Conduct Rules.
Allana Agnew
Allana Agnew is the director of Agnew Litigation & HR Pty Ltd specialising in employment law and commercial litigation (financial services, property development, building and construction, mining and animal care and veterinary industries among others). Allana is Specialist Accredited in commercial litigation (Queensland), receiving the highest achievement award for that class in 2016. She has over 12 years’ experience litigating in the various State and Territory Courts and in the Federal Courts for a broad range of disputes involving director and shareholder disputes, commercial contracts, joint ventures, misleading or deceptive representations and conduct in respect of marketing materials and capital raising documents as well as adverse action claims.
Anand Shah
Anand Shah joined the Bar over 18 years ago after practising as a solicitor for eleven years. Anand's practice areas include personal injuries, commercial litigation, administrative law, succession, defamation and human rights. Anand has appeared as counsel in the High Court, Queensland Court of Appeal, Federal Court and as trial counsel in all State Courts, the Federal Circuit Court of Australia and many Tribunals. Anand has acted as a mediator in a variety of disputes including personal injuries, commercial, professional negligence, and succession. Anand has been elected by the Queensland Bar, on many occasions, to serve on its Bar Council (the Bar's peak executive body).
Melanie Hindman QC
Melanie was appointed Queen’s Counsel in 2017. She has been consistently recommended for a number of years in Doyle's Construction & Infrastructure Barristers lists including in 2021 as preeminent in the Queensland Construction & Infrastructure Senior Counsel list; in 2021 as preeminent in the Australia Construction & Infrastructure Senior Counsel list. She is also recommended on the Doyle’s Leading Commercial Litigation and Dispute Resolution Senior Counsel Queensland 2020 list. Melanie is also listed in The Best Lawyers in Australia 2021 (14th edition) in Construction/Infrastructure Law (published in the AFR on 15 April 2021); awarded 2021 “Lawyer of the Year” in Construction/Infrastructure Law in Brisbane.
Andrew Schriiffer
Andrew Schriiffer has a broad commercial practice. He appears predominantly in bankruptcy and insolvency matters, banking and finance matters, property and leasing disputes, business and contractual disputes, administrative law matters and professional negligence claims. He also appears in criminal matters with a financial aspect. Andrew was called to the Bar in 2020. Before coming to the Bar, Andrew practised as a solicitor in commercial litigation and insolvency for over six years at DLA Piper and McCullough Robertson
Venue
Hilton Brisbane
190 Elizabeth St
Brisbane City
Brisbane 4000
QLD
Australia
Directions
Due to one way road systems, please note that car access is via Elizabeth Street only. Please programme 190 Elizabeth Street if using a car navigational device.
Nearby Public Transport:Train Stations - Central Station
Bus Interchange - George Square Bus Station
Parking
Parking is not included in your registration. There is valet parking available for AU$58.00