Doing Law Differently Lucy Dickens

If you ask a law firm leader to list their firm’s top values, there’s a good chance you’ll hear words like “access to justice”, “innovation”, “excellence” and “integrity”. For Maddocks, though, the guiding value is something far more unique: “stewardship”.







As David Newman, partner and CEO at Maddocks, explains to me in this interview, stewardship is about embracing the concept of leaving the firm in a better place for the next generation of leaders and is just one of the reasons that the team at Maddocks have created a Great Australian Law Firm.







In the last interview for 2021, David and I talk about innovation, staff retention, flexible working and exactly what makes Maddock’s what David calls a Great Australian Law Firm.







This episode is brought to you by The Prepared Company.







About David Newman







David is a partner and the CEO of Maddocks. He joined Maddocks and its Restructuring & Insolvency team in 2000 and was appointed a partner in 2002. Prior to being appointed as CEO in October 2020, he held numerous leadership positions at Maddocks, including Practice Group Head of the firm’s Corporate & Commercial practice and Practice Team Leader of the Banking & Insolvency practice. Away from work he have four children and enjoys cooking, fishing and diving.







Maddocks is a leading commercial law firm ranking in the top 15 law firms in Australia by partner size. They like to think of themselves as a Great Australian Law Firm, with a business covering all areas of commercial law.







David Newman quotes







* “I think one great test of retention for us is the boomerangs we have, the number of people we have that leave and whether they go overseas for a while, or whether they go in-house or some have even gone to our competitors or peers and they come back because they go ‘the grass isn’t always greener and we liked it where we were.’”* “[Stewardship] is a guiding principle … it also becomes a responsibility and an onus on partners…it becomes an obligation to actually put into action, to actually bring the next generation through to grow the practice so that people can share in the firm, rather than focus simply on what you’re doing on the day to day and focussing on your career.”* “As good as Zoom is and Teams is it really takes away from the experience… the top 10 experiences I’ve had, none of them have been online. Being able to move away from the theoretical to the practical for these younger lawyers is a real challenge for firms and hopefully they’ll stick it out and have those experiences and be the partners of the future.”* “The challenge is to pick what makes it better rather than just because we can. Just because we can have this conversation via Zoom, doesn’t mean we should. There are interactions that should be had in person and there are tasks that should be done in person. There’s learning, there’s mentoring there’s a lot of collaboration that sure it can be done on a screen, but it can’t be done as well.”







Find our more about Maddocks on their website and on LinkedIn.







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This episode is brought to you by The Prepared Company. The Prepared Company helps wills and estate lawyers by providing a secure white-label platform to manage and distribute their client’s di...

Fionn’s idea was simple – to have the flexibility to do the work she loved doing and to do it the way she thought it could be done. But with a background working in with big firms and big companies with traditional values, Fionn found she was not given the opportunity to explore her ideas.







Fionn decided there had to be a better way for lawyers to work and came up with an idea – ‘what if lawyers could sell their time back to law firms?’







Enter: Fionn’s firm, Bowd, a law firm for law firms with a focus on perfect-fit contract lawyers. She believes that when you need a particular skillset for a particular piece of work, just hire that skillset – you don’t always need to hire for the long term.







Listen in to learn more about Bowd and Fionn’s views on the progressive law movement.







This episode is brought to you by The Prepared Company.







About Fionn Bowd







Fionn is a former big projects and infrastructure lawyer turned legal services entrepreneur. After a career with big firms and big companies, Fionn decided there had to be a better way for lawyers to work. She wants lawyers from all backgrounds to continue to work in law firms, as a diverse profession serves society best.







Fionn’s firm, Bowd, is a law firm for law firms, with a focus on perfect-fit contract lawyers to smooth the workload in law firms and prevent burnout and attrition. They provide a well-paying and rewarding career option for lawyers who love complex legal work but can’t see themselves inside law firms for the long haul. Bowd also provide other specialist services to law firms, like tender preparation, research and article writing.







Fionn Bowd quotes







* “The firm has no costs, they get to charge this person out and then pay them an hourly rate. The firm takes its profit on the charge out rate and it works really well. Lawyers get double market salary, the firm gets half its charge out rate, we get a cut and everyone goes home very, very happy.”* “When you need a particular skill set for a particular piece of work, just hire that – don’t add people to your team who are going to be a bad cultural fit, who cause conflict, who are going to fade into the background or aren’t going to help because they don’t have the technical skills, no just hire the technical skills.”* “We’re all just humans living human lives, we all have our own challenges and for some people that’s kids, for some that’s parents for some people it’s needing to not work a full workload because their mental health is not supporting it… there’s so many reasons.”* “I think that’s what we need to do, I think we need to break the structures of our firms up into what we need for the short term and what we need for the long term. And potentially a medium term as well.”







Find Fionn online at Bowd website and LinkedIn or join Fight Club for Lawyers on the Clubhouse app.







Bring your law firm into the 21st century with The Prepared Company 







This episode is brought to you by The Prepared Company. The Prepared Company helps wills and estate lawyers by providing a secure white-label platform to manage and distribute their client’s digital records after they pass away. Passwords, cryptocurrency, photos, legal documents, and more – you can now provide a safe and secure way to pass your client’s data while also protecting their privacy. Mention the Doing Law Differently Podcast for 20% off your business subscription. 

After 20 years’ experience in estate law, Bernadette Duell saw her fair share of inadequately drafted Wills and thought, ‘there must be a better way.’







After moving to Albany in the south of Western Australia, Bernadette saw her opportunity to fix the problems she’d encountered at their root cause. She decided to establish a law firm that specialised solely in Wills and was met with a lot of criticism from her peers who told her that a specialist law firm wouldn’t succeed in a country town. She persevered, launched her firm Great Southern Wills in April 2020 and has proved the critics wrong, with a 200% growth in 18 months.







Launching during the Covid lockdown, Bernadette found Facebook a relevant platform and introduced her ‘mythbuster’ videos, providing short informational videos about the common myths associated with Wills.







From there, word of mouth in the community has played a big part in her success, as well as the ways in which she does law differently, such as free consults and fixed price products.







This episode is brought to you by The Prepared Company.







About our guest







Bernadette grew up in Sydney, gained her Masters at Sydney University and spent the first 10 years of her career in Sydney at top tier and medium tier law firms. She developed a specialty in tax, structures and estate planning, acting for high-net worth individuals.







Bernadette moved to Albany, Western Australia, far from the city life she was accustomed to.  She launched her firm, Great Southern Wills, during Covid lockdown 2020. With everyone at home, she posted video mythbusters on Facebook, which generated much discussion in the community. From there word of mouth in a small regional town has generated clients with the firm growing 200% in 18 months.







Bernadette Duell quotes







* “I thought there must be a better way of practising law rather than dealing with the fallout, the disputes, there must be a better way…and I thought why don’t these people get a proper will done in the first place, an up to date, properly advised Will. These people need a specialist not your country lawyer doing all types of law.”* “The lawyers in the country town, they’re hourly rates…and it’s like tick-tock, tick-tock. For me it’s like sitting in a cab at a red light and the meter’s tick, tick, tick, but you’re not actually providing a service when you’re at a red light, so what we provide is fixed fees.”* “It feels so good just to hear a client say you’ve given them the peace of mind, and I’ve now provided for my family. It’s the greatest gift to know that if they were to pass away or become incapacitated everything will be taken care of.”







Find Bernadette online at Great Southern Wills, Facebook and Instagram.







Bring your law firm into the 21st century with The Prepared Company 







This episode is brought to you by The Prepared Company. The Prepared Company helps wills and estate lawyers by providing a secure white-label platform to manage and distribute their client’s digital records after they pass away. Passwords, cryptocurrency, photos, legal documents, and more – you can now provide a safe and secure way to pass your client’s data while also protecting their privacy. Mention the Doing Law Differently Podcast for 20% off your business subscription. 

After many years spent working at a traditional law firm, Jo established 3D HR Legal, a specialist employment law firm that operates in a completely virtual working environment.







Jo quickly realised that the concept of being family friendly and flexible was a point of difference and the firm grew rapidly.  When COVID hit in 2020, Jo realised that her unique experience of managing her own remote team combined with her employment law expertise put her in the perfect position to support other businesses through the transition to remote work. Now it’s time to embrace flexible and remote work arrangements for the long term, Jo has written a book, Homeforce to help employers build a connected, engaged home-based team.







In this episode, Jo and I talk about the benefits of working remotely, but also about boundaries, being able to “switch off” and keep home and work life separate when there is no physical office. Jo also introduces us to her 6-step ‘REMOTE’ framework to build a thriving, distributed team who work from home (at least some of the time).







This episode is brought to you by The Prepared Company.







About Jo Alilovic







Jo Alilovic is the Director and founder of 3D HR Legal, an employment lawyer with 20 years’ experience, author and flexible work advocate who leads by example.







Jo was an early adopter of the remote first and hybrid workforce, managing her own fully distributed team for the last five years. After over a decade working for the largest law firm in Western Australia, Jo’s own business started as a bit of an accident – as so many good things do – when she decided to move down to Donnybrook with her family. At the time working remotely wasn’t the done thing. She quickly saw the opportunity to build a new style of law firm, one which would not only allow for location freedom and flexible work hours, but would also enable her to live out her dream to have both a successful career and a fulfilling family life.







3D HR Legal is a specialist employment who work with professional services businesses to help them avoid legal claims, learn what they don’t know, and create thriving workplace cultures that help business prosper.







Jo Alilovic quotes







* “I felt that I had flexibility because they knew me and because I had been there so for long. The difference with the business that I run is that you’ve got the flexibility from the moment you walk in the door. It’s starting from a point of trust, there’s no need to earn the right to it, it is a right that you have.”* “I like to encourage people to think of it like you are in an office, I worked in an office with four floors, we would always just pick up the phone and call someone, we wouldn’t worry about always walking up and down the stairs…that concept is the same no matter where you go people have this block that just because you aren’t in the vicinity of each other you can’t do it.”* “[A Homeforce] is working so well for me I just wanted to be able to help other people create the same thing in a way that worked, that’s why it very much became a how-to book. If you’re going to create a remote or hybrid team then you need a plan.”







Links to Jo and Homeforce







Get your copy of Homeforce on Amazon, Booktopia, Barnes and Noble, Book Depositary  

Anthony Curtin credits Christmas trees, in part, with being a better lawyer. Intrigued?







Back in 2009 Anthony found himself stung by the GFC and losing his job to redundancy. Needing to draw an income between jobs, he started a Christmas tree delivery business, Melbourne Christmas Trees, which is still successful today.







Anthony found that his business had a much bigger impact than he ever expected. More than just delivering trees, Melbourne Christmas Trees helped children to create happy memories and taught Anthony that business could be a vehicle not just to make money, but to contribute to a greater good.







Fast forward to 2016 and Anthony and his friend Dave Rennex started collaborating about their next venture. They discovered they both enjoyed law and shared the same values. They started Merton Lawyers under a stairwell in a co-workspace and the business rapidly grew to take over the entre venue.







Working with founders, tech companies and the people that like to invest in those companies, they bring the values and creativity from Melbourne Christmas Trees to the legal field, even employing staff from Christmas Trees and creating opportunities for their staff and clients.







This episode is brought to you by The Prepared Company.







About Anthony Curtin







Anthony is a lawyer, founder and family guy. He loves working with founders, tech companies and those that invest in them but also spending time with his family and being forever challenged and inspired by his three kids.







In 2016 Anthony started Merton Lawyers with Dave Rennex. They now employ 23 people across four locations in Victoria and Queensland. They advise clients in corporate/commercial law, dispute Resolution and property construction.







Find Anthony online at Merton Lawyers, on Instagram and LinkedIn.







Anthony Curtin quotes







* “It’s incredible to see the journey that a lot of our clients have gone from back in 2006 to now and they’re now, by progression or growth, it’s natural for them to look to the US and we kind of want to go on the journey with them.”* “It’s not just the tree that we are giving, it’s the smell of the tree, it’s actually developing happy memories for a lot of these kids that have gone through a really challenging time. That is one of the most fulfilling parts of my work across anything that I’ve done.”* “We’ve got three of our staff at the moment… that have worked across account management, business development, management of clients…so for them at a junior level they’re getting exposure to a start-up, they’re getting practical experience, and it just adds another feather to their bow.”







Bring your law firm into the 21st century with The Prepared Company 







This episode is brought to you by The Prepared Company. The Prepared Company helps wills and estate lawyers by providing a secure white-label platform to manage and distribute their client’s digital records after they pass away. Passwords, cryptocurrency, photos, legal documents, and more – you can now provide a safe and secure way to pass your client’s data while also protecting their privacy. Mention the Doing Law Differently Podcast for 20% off your business subscription. 

Jacqui Brauman has spent time delving into the psychology of the ‘missing middle’ and understanding the barriers that prevent upwards of 80% of people from getting professional advice.







With the goal of creating a safe space for women to access legal services, Jacqui started Legally Wise Women, which she describes as an information and education hub, a community and a starting point for women who need advice. Reflecting on other businesses that have progressed or even been disrupted by automation and technology, Jacqui aims to keep the humanity in being a lawyer. She says it’s only a matter of time before something big happens in the legal industry and aims to be ahead of the game as much as possible with her law firm, TBA Law.







This episode is brought to you by The Prepared Company.







About Jacqui Brauman







As well as being the CEO of Legally Wise Women, Jacqui Brauman created her firm TBA Law in 2012, providing estate planning, family and property legal services to families in Melbourne and Regional Victoria. Jacqui is an accredited specialist in Wills and estates, and an award-winning lawyer. She is an NMAS mediator, a collaboratively trained dispute resolution practitioner and she has written and published four books.







Find out more at TBA Law, Legally Wise Women.







Jacqui Brauman quotes







* “We’ve done a whole lot of work about our values so in our tagline we now say it [TBA Legal] stands for the better approach and we also say it stands for to be accountable, to be approachable and a couple of our other values…we’ve used the play on words a lot.”







* “I’ve thought a long time about how to create a safe place for women to land and get pointed in the right direction and learn a little bit about the legal industry so when they are actually going to hire someone they know what to look for and they don’t get taken down a path they don’t need to go on or just to show them a whole heap of alternatives…I don’t think Google is the best place to start.”







Are you ready to Do Law Differently? 







If you’re serious about reshaping your firm, The Productise and Profit Program provides all the guidance and tools you need to improve your law firm.    







Learn how to move from a traditional practice to a productised ecosystem and as a bonus, you might just get that quality lifestyle that you’ve been craving.  







Sign up now at www.lucydickens.com.au/program    







Bring your law firm into the 21st century with The Prepared Company 







This episode is brought to you by The Prepared Company. The Prepared Company helps wills and estate lawyers by providing a secure white-label platform to manage and distribute their client’s digital records after they pass away. Passwords, cryptocurrency, photos, legal documents, and more – you can now provide a safe and secure way to pass your client’s data while also protecting their privacy. Mention the Doing Law Differently Podcast for 20% off your business subscription. 







Find out more here,