Bucket of ice water for Victorian solicitors

New LIV CEO hired to breathe fresh life into the solicitors' club ... Reform challenges in the face of unprecedented change ... Kevin Childs meets Nerida Wallace, and she's the one with all the questions 

Wallace: change agent

IT would be grotesque and unfair to liken the Law Institute of Victoria to a broken down buggy of the, well, Victorian age: the nag between the shafts flogged to a standstill, the wheels rusted and decaying. 

It may also be bending the truth to say that in the noble tradition of women stepping in to mop up the mess the chaps have made, the appointment of Nerida Wallace as first female CEO of this busted buggy is hailed as offering a chance of some life for the poor old solicitors' club.

Nevertheless, there is a sniff of truth to this.

Wallace, daughter of a magistrate and with 30 legal years under her belt, comes from the world of change. Uncle Theodore, as portrayed by Evelyn Waugh, may have loved to sing "Change and decay in all around I see," but now the watchword is change and not decay.

Wallace's business, Transformation Management Services, sounds like a front for spooks, but the word is it has been effective in tipping metaphorical buckets of ice water on all sorts of outfits to wake them to the 21st century.

So she has given her rapid-fire attention, direct as a firehose, to scarcely progressive mobs such as the Accident Compensation Conciliation Service, Workcover, the Victorian Law Reform Commission, Family Court, and the Attorney General's Department. To their benefit.

Kicking off as a humble court registrar, she's been  a conciliator, solicitor, principal legal officer and policy adviser. Unlike the Commonwealth Attorney General she has an intimate familiarity with computers and how they help the law. Moreover, she asks, "What are lawyers doing in the face of technological change. What can be done better?"

Citing the way UK banks are muscling into legal services she sounds the alarm for the future of the game.

"There are 60,000 lawyers in Australia, 19,000 of them are members of the LIV. It is a significant industry reform challenge. Even now 'unbundled legal services' are being shunted offshore or going to the DIY movement." 

Add to that thousands of graduates coming down the pipeline, the snafu that is Legal Aid, shifting regulatory arrangements between the Legal Services Board and commissioner and the picture seems painted by Hieronymus Bosch. 

Bosch's famous painting of the Victorian legal profession at work

But, as she prepares to take over the reins, 55-year-old Ms Wallace is clear-sighted about what confronts her. This includes a need to continue to focus on helping lawyers make a transition both with technology and the different phases of their working lives.

"We want to look at how to take advantage of new concepts in the way people work – the shared economy, flexible working arrangements, portfolio careers, multi-disciplinary teams. We need to find new opportunities for graduates and show them the way through new career paths. 

My baby boomer generation is looking to the next generation to take up their practices; the regulatory framework seems like it is increasing; personal stresses associated with workloads are taking a toll; work for many of our graduates appears a lost dream and lawyers in-house and in government wonder how to differentiate themselves in fast reducing workforces."

She acknowledges that much of this is happening against the painfully slow process of edging towards uniform regulation. With Victoria and NSW in some agreement about the need for a national regulator to smooth the challenges of the Asian century, Wallace is confident that it just might happen.

Transforming the buggy into a self-propelled vehicle of this century is, however, another question.

Clearly, the new LIV CEO is not short of questions. Those who know her well are sure that, calling on what might be called collective wisdom, she will also come up with answers.