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modern legal practices.
Tips, guides and thought leadership on legal technology, practice management and growing your firm.
AML/CTF for Australian law firms: what a matter file has to record now that tranche 2 has started
Tranche 2 obligations commenced for Australian lawyers on 1 July 2026. Which files are designated services, what customer due diligence, reporting and seven-year record keeping ask of a matter file, and how to structure the file so the evidence creates itself.
Nick Hallam
9 September 2026
Client communication in a conveyancing matter: what to tell the client, when, and what to automate
A residential purchase has eight moments where the client's understanding changes. The cooling-off rules that differ by state, which updates are safe to automate and which are not, and how MatterFirst, LEAP, Smokeball, Actionstep and Clio compare on client-facing communication.
Liam Killingback
7 September 2026
Billing a fixed-fee conveyancing matter: disbursements, trust withdrawals and which files make money
A fixed fee covers your professional fee, not the disbursements or the client's settlement funds. How Australian property firms record outlays, withdraw costs from trust under rule 42 and section 58, and work out which matter types are actually profitable.
Nick Hallam
2 September 2026
Client intake for an Australian law firm: costs disclosure, conflicts and the first hour of a matter
Costs disputes start at intake, not at billing. The costs disclosure thresholds that apply in each Australian jurisdiction, what the Legal Services Council is proposing to change, and how to structure intake so the conflict check, the disclosure and the key dates create their own evidence.
Liam Killingback
31 August 2026
What actually migrates when you change legal practice management software
Contacts and matters are the easy part. Trust ledgers, precedents and workflows decide your timeline. A practical guide for Australian firms changing practice management systems, including what is confirmed about FilePro and LawMaster and what is only reported.
Nick Hallam
26 August 2026
How to Choose Legal Practice Management Software for a Small Australian Firm
Feature checklists do not separate practice management products. Jurisdiction fit, hosting, pricing unit and the exit path do. Here is how to run an evaluation across LEAP, Clio, Smokeball, Actionstep and MatterFirst, with every vendor claim checked against their own public pages.
Liam Killingback
24 August 2026
What to ask before connecting an AI assistant to your firm's matter files
Connecting Claude or ChatGPT to your practice management system exposes every matter the connecting user can see. Eight questions to resolve first, mapped to NSW Practice Note SC Gen 23, with how the major Australian platforms answer them today.
Nick Hallam
19 August 2026
Limitation Dates and Diarising: What Your Practice Management System Should Calculate for You
General limitation periods run six years in every Australian jurisdiction except the Northern Territory, where they run three. Here is which dates a practice management system should calculate from matter facts, which should stay a solicitor judgement call, and how to test a vendor on the difference.
Liam Killingback
17 August 2026
Legal software data residency in Australia: where your firm's matter data actually lives
Data residency for Australian law firms is not one question but six: database, documents, backups, AI processing, subprocessors and support access can each sit in a different country. What to ask, how to verify it, and what LEAP, Clio, Smokeball, Actionstep and MatterFirst publish today.
Nick Hallam
12 August 2026
Document automation for law firms: what should be a merge field, and what genuinely needs a model
Anything already recorded on the matter belongs in a merge field. A model earns its place only where a section needs synthesis. A per-section test for Australian firms automating their precedents, with a vendor comparison and the questions to ask.
Liam Killingback
10 August 2026
Electronic signatures in a legal workflow: what Australian law requires, and how e-signing works in MatterFirst
Electronic signing is valid in Australia when the method identifies the signer, shows their intention and is as reliable as the transaction warrants. The harder part is evidence. What the Electronic Transactions Acts and the Corporations Act actually require, what still needs its own process, the trail a dispute asks for, and how MatterFirst, LEAP, Clio, Smokeball and Actionstep each provide signing.
Nick Hallam
10 August 2026
AI document extraction in a legal workflow: how a contract becomes matter data
Extraction reads what is in a document. Generation writes what is not. A five step walkthrough of what happens between an upload and a filled matter field, what to test in a trial, where the inference actually runs, and how MatterFirst, LEAP, Clio, Smokeball and Actionstep describe their own document AI.
Liam Killingback
8 August 2026
Trust accounting compliance by state: what Australian law firms lodge, and when
NSW, Victoria and Western Australia run a 31 March trust year with an external examiner's report due 31 May. Queensland counts 60 days. South Australia runs a 30 June year. A jurisdiction by jurisdiction guide to the deadlines, the forms and the reports your practice management system has to produce, with the regulator source for every date.
Nick Hallam
8 August 2026
The conveyancing workflow from instruction to settlement: what your practice management system should handle
An Australian conveyancing matter runs through eight stages, and PEXA covers only one of them. A stage-by-stage guide to what a practice management system should carry, what the participation rules ask of your file, and how MatterFirst, LEAP, Smokeball, Actionstep and Clio compare on the points a property firm actually buys on.
Liam Killingback
8 August 2026
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