Work step by step through what you need to do to successfully prepare for trial, from planning your witness statements and pre-trial vs trial evidence, to preparing evidence and making opening submissions. Walk away with valuable strategies concerning settlement offers and drafting enforceable settlement agreements. Gain insights into how to emerge successful in mediation, by getting the tips on how to deal with the Mediator.
Early Bird Discount ends 10 May 2024 $353.50
Chair
Farid Assaf SC, Banco Chambers; Preeminent Insolvency & Restructuring Senior Counsel, Doyle’s Guide 2023
Professional Skills
4.15pm to 5.15pm Drafting Effective Settlement Agreements: Components and Structure
- The essential elements of a bulletproof settlement agreement
- Documenting with clarity & certainty: the agreement, the terms & parties’ rights and obligations
- Timing issues and strategic considerations
- Form of agreement: Deed or covenant not to sue?
- Key clauses: the important considerations for each & drafting tips
- Enforcement: how to avoid an agreement being set aside
Presented by Mark Martin KC, Level 10 Inns of Court
Description
Attend and earn 4 CPD units in Professional Skills
This program is applicable to practitioners from all States & Territories
Professional Skills
1.00pm to 2.00pm A Guide to Preparing for Trial
- Establishing a plan and a strategy
- Planning witness testimony
- Lay and expert witnesses, timing and rules of evidence
- Preparing and getting the best out of your witnesses
- Pre-trial evidence exchanges vs at trial evidence
- Getting your notices right
- Notices to admit facts and documents
- Notices to produce and subpoenas for production
- Preparing opening submissions
Presented by Jason Betts, Partner, Global Co-Head of Class Actions, Herbert Smith Freehills; Market Leader Commercial Litigation & Dispute Resolution Lawyer and Leading Class Actions Lawyer, Doyle’s Guide 2023
Professional Skills
2.00pm to 3.00pm Settlement Offers and Without Prejudice Communications: Getting the Best Deal for Your Client
- Rules relating to ‘without prejudice’ privilege and Evidence Act protections
- Admissibility issues
- Potential pitfalls: when ‘without prejudice’ privilege can be lost
- Calderbankoffers and formal offers pursuant to the Rules
- Maximising your client's prospects of a meaningful costs order
- Latest judicial guidance
Presented by Stacy Miller, Partner, Cronin Miller; Recommended Commercial Litigation & Dispute Resolution Lawyers, Doyle’s Guide 2023
3.00pm to 3.15pm Break
Professional Skills
3.15pm to 4.15pm Alternative Dispute Resolution: Dealing with Mediators
- Providing the mediator with sufficient evidentiary material and court documents to be concisely appraised of the issues in dispute
- Remember that the function of the mediator is not to make decisions: the mediator needs to know the questions which will arise in reaching a resolution (not all the answers)
- Consider what, if any, material will be provided confidentially either in the written material or in private session
- Provide concise position papers spelling out a desired outcome and is not simply an attack on the other side
- Remember that the primary function of the mediation is to get a case resolved and it's not the forum for running the trial
Presented by Campbell Bridge SC, 7 Wentworth Selborne
Presenters
Farid Assaf SC, Barrister
Farid Assaf SC is a barrister at Banco Chambers well known for his commercial litigation, corporate insolvency and advocacy expertise at both trial and appellate level. Farid is ranked in all leading legal directories, including Chambers and Partners Asia-Pacific and Worldwide Directory for 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019; Best Lawyers Directory for 2014, 2015, 2017 and 2018; and Doyle's Guide for 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018. Farid is a Fellow of INSOL International (with honours, first in class) and a leading author in insolvency matters. Prior to being called to the bar Farid was an in-house lawyer with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission where he developed significant expertise in corporate and financial services regulation.,
Jason Betts, Partner, Herbert Smith Freehills
Jason is widely regarded as one of Australia’s leading class action, regulatory investigation and product liability specialists. He has over 23 years’ of litigation experience and has defended the largest class action litigation, regulatory investigations and prosecutions and corporate distress liability issues in the Australian market. Jason has acted in the majority of Australia’s largest class actions, including major securities and product liability cases. Jason is a Visitor to the University of Sydney Law School, teaching the post-graduate course “Class Action Litigation in Australia”. In 2022 Jason co-authored the third edition of the leading class actions text book in the country, “Class Actions in Australia”.
Campbell Bridge SC, Barrister, 7 Wentworth Selborne Chambers
Campbell Bridge SC was admitted to the NSW Bar in July 1977 and appointed Senior Counsel in 1998. His practice has predominately involved complex commercial, product liability, public liability and professional indemnity cases both as a mediator and counsel. He has acted in major inquests and as Counsel Assisting in a Royal Commission. Campbell has acted as a mediator in several hundred major mediations in both Australia and Asia. He has spoken at numerous international conferences in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Australia on negotiation, culture and mediation of commercial and professional liability disputes in Australia and Asia. He has also taught on aspects of mediation, negotiation, culture and professional negligence disputes at the Dispute Resolution in Asia LLM course at Sydney University, the Indonesian Mediation Centre, and the Melbourne Law Masters Program. He is on the panel of Arbitrators of BANI (Indonesia National Board of Arbitration). He is an Accredited Mediator under the National Mediator Accreditation System (NMAS) of Australia and is as a Mediator and Arbitrator by the Supreme Court of New South Wales. He is a guest international mediator of the Pusat Mediasi Nasional (Indonesian Mediation Centre).
Stacy Miller, Partner, Cronin Miller Litigation
Stacy Miller has practiced exclusively in the areas of commercial litigation, insolvency, debt recovery and dispute resolution since her commencement of practice in Queensland in 2003. She has been a partner of the Gold Coast based specialist commercial litigation and insolvency firm, Cronin Miller Litigation, since 2014.
Mark Martin KC, Level 10, Inns of Court
Mark 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.
