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It has been described as the darkest chapter in Victoria's legal history, an exemplar of all that is terrible with class actions in Australia. A case of greedy lawyers who found their golden egg in a group of retirees who had lost their life savings, never thinking the chickens might come home to roost. Until now.
After more than a year-and-a-half of virtual trials, Australia’s barristers have adapted and come up with the best techniques to maintain an edge when cross-examining witnesses in the virtual courtroom.
As Australia’s largest cities prepare to emerge from lockdown, law firms are doubling down on their efforts to vaccinate staff, with some going so far as to implement a ‘no jab, no office’ policy.
New requirements that funded class actions be run as managed investment schemes will throw up myriad new questions for the courts, with lawyers predicting novel challenges by defendants and group members and an altered landscape for competing class actions.
The migration to the digital courtroom is taking its toll on the nation’s barristers, who face increased challenges and levels of fatigue from the mental load of conducting hearings remotely.
Despite COVID-19 case numbers in Australia hitting historic highs and the threat of an economic recession, law firms are cautiously optimistic about their ability to weather the storm without redundancies or reductions in staff pay.
The number of new class actions has nosedived in the past six months, but experts say the drop does not signal a long-term trend but a recalibration by lawyers and funders, whose ingenuity is not to be underestimated.
As states across Australia grapple with lockdowns and rising COVID-19 cases, lawyers practising in a range of areas, from employment to insurance, are bracing for a fresh wave of pandemic-related litigation before the year is out.
Reforms by the Morrison government passed earlier this month weakening continuous disclosure obligations will spur corporate defendants to engage in "expensive interlocutory warfare" to shut down class actions right off the bat, and plaintiffs lawyers are waiting to see how the courts interpret the new laws to determine these early strike-out fights.
As the no win, no fee model comes out on top in another high profile class action beauty contest, legal experts say third-party litigation funders will need to evolve and "fight back" to stay competitive.