Recorded Webinar: 3 CPD Compulsory Topic programs for Family Lawyers

This webinar comprises 3 one-hour sessions covering each of the compulsory CPD subjects for family lawyers for the CPD year ending 31 March 2023.

Session 1: Practice Management Business Skills

Handling Volatile Clients in Family Law

In an area of law that is already heightened with emotion, family lawyers can often be faced with difficult clients: they may be excessively needy, overly aggressive, or a combination of both. This session provides best practice strategies in managing difficult clients, including:

• The written agreement on client practitioner interaction
• Maintaining a professional relationship with the client
• Some red flags to watch – recognizing the manipulative, needy client
• Managing toxic or aggressive behaviour
• Key management strategies:

• Managing communication and response expectations
• Explain difference between urgent and non-urgent
• Setting a precedent to reinforce boundaries
• Being selective on clients

• Managing client expectation where client exhibits excessive list of wants
• Knowing when to ‘pull the plug’ on the client

Session 2: Ethics

Negotiations and Determining When to Settle: Walking the Ethical Tightrope

All may be fair in love and war, but when do negotiation tactics cross the line into an ethical breach? This session looks at the ethical dimensions of negotiations and entering into settlements in family law matters. It includes:

• Understanding the ethics of adversarial practice and their impact on settlement
• Ethical guidelines for entering settlement negotiations
• Should we view settlement negotiations as a game? - the ethics consequences
• Some ethics issues in settlement negotiations::

• Fraudulent deception
• When silence is a problem
• Use of false material
• Obligation of disclosure

• Ethics issues in the settlement of complex litigation
• Is there an ethics issue in refusing to settle?

Session 3: Professional Skills

For Richer and Poorer: Drafting Watertight Property Consent Orders

There are many advantages to settling disputes through consent orders, but there are also many potential pitfalls in drafting them. This session takes a deep-dive into the preparation and drafting of an application for and minutes of proposed orders for property and financial matters, including:

• When is a property consent order appropriate? Considerations from case law and other requirements
• Guidance for completing the consent order application – due diligence, disclosure and client co-operation
• Tips for setting out financial information clearly and concisely
• Essential matters for property orders and drafting advice, including:

• asset identification and allocation
• time limits for sale and distribution
• apportionment and responsibility for liabilities
• third party actions and consents

• When will a court decline to make a consent order and options for redrafting and reconsideration
• Cases and examples