Who we are

The benefits to the client

The benefits to the client are that the staff are doing what they wanted to do when they left university. Which was to right wrongs in the most cost effective way possible.

If the cost of justice is too high, then justice will not be done at all, and we will be left with lawlessness.

Disruption: Commercial television

Benefits to the staff of the business model

The essence of the role of a lawyer is their ability to understand the complexity of a client’s circumstances, and identify as many as six legal issues that might be relevant. Then, as quickly and efficiently as the circumstances allow, distil the six issues down to the one or two issues that are critical.

The quality of that process is best measured by how well the time recorded by the lawyer compares to the evidence of the work that has been considered by the costs lawyer who reviews every file before a bill is rendered.

If the time recorded matches the evidence of the work found by the costs lawyer, then the lawyer has done as good a job as the law provides.

That is how we evaluate our performance.

Please note the absence of reference to any “budget”, or “fees”, or “time records”, or non legally qualified HR manager who has never read a legal file or gone to court, or “supervising partner” as a means of evaluating performance.

We train and evaluate performance having regard to data, evidence from another lawyer, and the applicable scales of legal costs.

The Walpole Menzies team

ANDREW STOPS

Founder

NATASHA BUYCK

Practice Manager

KYLE DOWSETT

Lawyer

WILL MURRAY

Lawyer

The work we do

We advise and act for clients whose commercial rights have been affected by the conduct of others. The commercial rights affected might be in Australia or elsewhere. The rights can vary from:

intellectual property

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disciplinary proceedings

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rights pursuant to the Corporations Act

insurance

tax schemes

property

employment relations

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Defamation

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Insolvency

Disruption: Banks dispense cash from a computer

The experience of the founder

The principal has been involved in commercial disputes for the last 33 years. His career has included diverse experiences such as:

  1. Having the conduct of four proceedings where the sum in dispute exceeded $100M.
  2. Conducting 200 Magistrate’s Court proceedings at the one time.
  3. Conducting proceedings in the European Patents Tribunal concerning the validity of patents.
  4. Conducting proceedings in the High Court of Paris concerning the infringement of intellectual property generated in Australia.
  5. Acting for celebrity sportsmen and politicians in defamation proceedings referred to in daily newspapers.
  6. Setting aside Powers of Attorney in the Human Rights Division of the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal.
  7. Having had the carriage of disputes in all States and Territories in Australia except the ACT.
  8. Conducting litigation concerning the right and entitlement of the AFL to various trademarks and the copyright in photographs.
  9. Acting for a player in the AFL disciplinary tribunal.
  10. Acting for the chief executive and founder of a start up company who had been excluded from the company he started by the Venture Capital group who had assisted in funding the expansion of the company.

The founder has a full academic qualification in accounting and finance. A family member was a qualified accountant for more than 50 years and as a consequence the nature of accounting is the subject of both familiarity and curiosity. He is familiar and comfortable with, for instance, the intricacies of balance day adjustments and the various accounting standards.

The founder also has an MBA from the Australian Graduate School of Management (AGSM). The research for his final year related to competitive strategy in the legal profession in Australia. It was as a result of this research that he identified the gap in the market for legal services that is met by Walpole Menzies.

The founder’s studies at the AGSM also allow him to quickly and incisively understand a client’s commercial circumstances, particularly how their commercial difficulty arose and how that is affecting their ability to compete in their markets. That allows him to articulate their position in any dispute and/or assist them in prioritising valuable working capital which is used up in paying legal fees.

The verified fees model

What is it?

Disruption: The first computers