Around 160 lawyers heard champion athlete Kurt Fearnley provide the keynote address at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Terrigal this morning. Over the next two days, speakers will address issues such as ethics, practice management and mediation.

"We generally try to include in these conferences topics that are relevant to personal injury law in particular," said ALA NSW president Jnana Gumbert. "However, we also look at other issues that the ALA is involved in, such as human rights, criminal law and victim's law."

The majority of the ALA's approximately 400 NSW-based members work in the area of personal injury law.

Other speakers at the conference include American attorney Michael Kessler, who will be speaking about life expectancy defences, and consultant psychiatrist Dr Jonathan Phillips, who will lead a discussion about whether lawyers and doctors make strange bedfellows.