Leading lawyers have welcomed a new practice note in the Commercial Court division of the Victorian Supreme Court, including a ârigid frameworkâ to cut down on interlocutory disputation which is expected to benefit commercial class action litigants, but some say the note âshould have gone furtherâ to compel discovery from defendants.
When the Supreme Court of Victoria considers for the first time a settlement reached in a class action run on a contingency fee basis, it will grapple with some novel questions, including whether to trim the 27.5 per cent group costs order granted to Slater & Gordon at the outset of the case, legal experts say.
Australian IP lawyers are closely watching The New York Times’ copyright lawsuit seeking billions in damages from OpenAI and Microsoft, but it remains to be seen whether Australia will become a favoured jurisdiction for similar suits or be left playing catch up, experts say.
Expect more legal battles this year over the right to work from home, with employees continuing to demand flexibility but businesses starting to push back, according to legal experts.
Judges were not afraid to vent their spleen in 2023, but lawyers were not the only object of judicial scorn last year, as judges waded into public discourse and sounded off over issues including complex legislation, media reports, famous social media commentators, and the involvement of government departments in legal proceedings.Â
Companies and government entities paid out less to settle class actions in 2023 than in the previous two years, with no mega settlements hitting their pocketbooks.
Generative artificial intelligence will completely transform the legal industry, potentially decimating the billable hour in the process, and experts say practitioners who donât embrace the technology will be swiftly replaced by those who do.
While the use of artificial intelligence is becoming more commonplace in law firms, it has not yet transformed the practice of law, with lawyers reporting that concerns about privacy, reliability, and liability mean the application of AI remains limited.
From the ongoing saga of the high-profile Christian Porter action against the ABC to âbackyardâ litigation testing the serious harm bar, defamation cases made headlines in 2022, with winners and losers alike shelling out millions to lawyers to protect their reputations.
Last year brought economic growth and success for law firms, but 2021 was not only marked with good news. A slew of law firms were dragged into litigation by disgruntled ex-clients, with some paying out millions of dollars to resolve lawsuits accusing them of giving bad advice.