“I don’t think the world will ever be the same again, and – like many industries and professions – the size and composition of the legal profession coming out of this pandemic could be somewhat different from what it looked like going into the pandemic,” he mused.

“Inevitably, we’ll have a recovery and business and the economy will take off again, but there’ll be a number of casualties along the way we probably won’t see again.”

Litigation, Mr Speakman submitted, will be “quite different” in a post-pandemic world – even though there are some aspects of court proceedings that will have to revert back to normal.

“There are hearings that just don’t lend themselves to remote facilities: where you want to cross-examine a witness, for example, often it’s done where there’s physical attendance and you can eyeball the witness and see them live. But, there’s a whole host of interlocutory steps that I think could be done online or remotely, and I think if the legal profession and the judicial offices get used to that, I think we’ll see more and more of it on the other side of the pandemic,” he posited.

That could necessarily include, he predicted, “not requiring parties and their lawyers to attend in person [and instead doing it] over the phone or on the internet”.

Such evolution is made more likely, Mr Speakman noted, by the ways in which the courts have adapted to pandemic-inspired changes, despite the impact it has had.

“In the circumstances, I think the courts have coped pretty well. The analogy I’ve been given is this: when the pandemic started, our AVL and IT for remote court activity [were] a bit like a four-seater Hyundai without GPS and without air conditioning.”

VIEW ALL

“Now, it’s a hundred-seater Hyundai with a bit of standing room and GPS. Part of the problem has been though that people still want to ride that same Hyundai and get off at the same bus stop, and so, we’ve had to stagger sitting hours as best we can. But my impression is that the AVL quality has certainly improved and become more reliable in the last couple of weeks, and thus the legal profession is coping as good as you could expect with these difficult circumstances,” he said.

Getting used to a “new normal” on such fronts shouldn’t be too confronting a prospect for legal professionals, Mr Speakman observed.

“Compared with a lot of other industries and professions, lawyers are pretty well advanced with IT. The general public might look at barristers, for example, with quaint wigs and gowns and think it’s an old-fashioned profession, but I think the bar and the solicitor branch of the profession are pre-digitised and IT savvy already. Obviously, we’re going to have to have more reliance on those as we go into the future.”

To listen to the full conversation with NSW Attorney-General Mark Speakman, click below: