| 8:30 am - 9:00 am |
Arrival - light breakfast and coffee cart
Your Russell Kennedy host for the day will be Ben Lloyd, Principal.
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| 9:00 am - 9:30 am |
Session 1: Welcome and keynote address
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This session is worth 0.5 CPD point in Practice Management
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Fiona McLeay, Victorian Legal Services Board CEO and Victorian Legal Services Commissioner will open our annual CPD Day. Fiona will discuss in further detail about the Board’s role along with her role, its functions and some of the challenges and what the future outlook is.
Prior to her appointment Fiona was the CEO of Justice Connect, Australia’s largest provider of pro bono legal assistance. She began her legal career at Phillips Fox, then worked at Clayton Utz before becoming General Counsel at World Vision and moving to the Public Interest Law Clearing House (PILCH) Victoria in 2010.
As presented by:
 Fiona McLeay
Commissioner - Legal Services Board (Victoria)
Fiona is a Leader, change agent and a social justice advocate.
Fiona is the former CEO of Justice Connect, the leading not for profit providing free legal help to underserved people and community organisations, leveraging the prob bono skills of the private legal profession. Through her role as commissioner, Fiona displays strong leadership that invokes organisational change, especially through her strong strategy development and implementation skills. Fiona also has trained as a lawyer with 8 years practice experience in construction and engineering dispute resolution.
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9:30 am - 10:30 am
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Session 2: Ethics - The vibe is not enough
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This session is worth 1 CPD point in Ethics
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Rebecca Fraser, Russell Kennedy Senior Associate, will discuss a range of topical ethical issues for government lawyers and practical management strategies. The session will include the ethical challenges of advising policy teams, and how ethical duties apply to the increasing use of technology in the provision of legal advice.
As presented by:
 Rebecca Fraser
Senior Associate - Russell Kennedy Lawyers
Rebecca has over a decade of experience in government law, specialising in legislative development, statutory interpretation and regulatory reform. Rebecca has worked in house for government departments and regulators.
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| 10:30 am - 10:45 am |
Break and coffee cart
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10:45 am - 11:45 am
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Session 3: Information sharing across government and with regulated persons – trends, traps and tricks
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This session is worth 1 CPD point in Substantive Law
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Information sharing across government and with persons regulated by government does not occur in a legal vacuum of a single piece of legislation. Rather there is a complex interplay of powers, obligations and rights which may influence decisions to share information across government and with regulated persons. Further the exercise of these decisions should not be devoid of broader considerations of risks, policy objectives and the public interest.
In this session Emma Turner, Russell Kennedy Principal, will discuss:
- the interplay between express information sharing powers and confidentiality provisions in scheme specific legislation and general privacy law;
- how to deal with claims of privacy by corporations; and
- sharing information obtained in the course of regulatory and enforcement investigations.
Emma will explore the trends in these themes, share some of the traps she has encountered and the possible tricks and workarounds available to facilitate the sharing of information.
As presented by:
 Emma Turner
Principal - Russell Kennedy Lawyers
Emma has experience working in-house for government, statutory boards and health service providers. Emma advises clients on legal compliance, risk management, policy and procedure development to support good governance and operations, statutory interpretation, good decision-making and procedural fairness, privacy and confidentiality, records keeping and access to information. Emma is also available to undertake investigations of incidents and resolution of complaints.
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11:45 am - 12:45 pm
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Session 4: Government writing and presenting - clear and concise communications
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| This session is worth 1 CPD point in Professional Skills |
Communicating effectively to internal and external stakeholders is core business for legal professionals. This workshop will show you how to prepare for critical communications in a time effective manner.
Ben Richards has 22 years of experience working with Government lawyers and their clients
As presented by:
 Ben Richards
Principal - Aticus
Ben has coordinated the successful bid presentations for iconic infrastructure pitches around Australia. He has facilitated a number of prominent public hypothetical discussions and has prepared National Press Club speeches at Cabinet Minister level.
Ben has over ten thousand hours of training and consultation experience at all levels of management. An exceptional and intuitive teacher, his capacity to work with different groups and individuals in a robust and straightforward manner is highly regarded.
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12:45 pm - 1:30 pm
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Light lunch and refreshments provided
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1:30 pm - 2:15 pm
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Session 5: Drafting and negotiating liability caps and indemnities: A practitioner’s guide
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This session is worth 0.75 CPD point in Substantive Law
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In this presentation Kyle Gillan, Russell Kennedy Principal, will explore:
- The general law of damages
- Contractual mechanisms to transfer risk through indemnities
- Limitations and interpretation of indemnities
- Drafting tips
- Recent cases and developments
As presented by:
 Kyle Gillan
Principal - Russell Kennedy Lawyers
Kyle is a projects and construction lawyer focused on the ‘front end’ procurement aspects of projects. With over 12 years’ experience advising on major projects in Australia and Asia, Kyle has specific experience advising the government (Commonwealth, State and local) on a range of construction and facilities maintenance projects.
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2:15 pm - 3:00 pm
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Session 6: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of search warrants
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This session is worth 0.75 CPD point in Substantive Law
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The power to enter land with a warrant is an effective way to gather evidence. However, when a search warrant is not executed correctly, or there are defects in the application documents, things can turn ugly.
Kylie Walsh will take you through the good, the bad and the ugly of search warrants to help you to manage and advise Government investigators using search warrant powers. The presentation will include common law powers of seizure, the limits on the use of seized evidence and recent case studies.
As presented by:
 Kylie Walsh
Special Counsel - Russell Kennedy
Kylie is a litigation lawyer with over 10 years’ experience. Kylie acts on behalf of various government clients and statutory authorities and specialises in prosecution, enforcement, disciplinary and administrative review proceedings.
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3:00 pm - 4:00 pm
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Session 7: Testing the model – sticking to the model litigant guidelines when the going gets tough - a panel discussion
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This session is worth 1 CPD point in Practice Management
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Guest panellists:
W Brind Zichy-Woinarski, Queens Counsel
Sarala Fitzgerald, Barrister
It is easy to say that you will act as a model litigant, but actually doing so in some circumstances can be challenging to the practitioner, in-house counsel and public-servant alike. Our panel will look at circumstances where the requirement to comply with the highest standard of profession practice can be challenged by self-represented litigants, bureaucratic inertia, disputes between departments, departmental policy and how the Model Litigant Guidelines can gets on with its relatives: legal professional duties and ethics, Public Sector Values, prosecutorial ethics and legislative restrictions on behaviour like the Civil Procedure Act and the Charter.
This session will be facilitated by Ben Lloyd, Principal, and Sarah Manly, Principal, Russell Kennedy Lawyers.
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4:00 pm
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Networking and refreshments
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