I was convinced it would work. Point the device at the right star, and I would return to my home. I was standing outside the front of my house on a cold winters evening. The sky was ablaze with sparkling lights you could almost touch. I aimed the device and waited to be lifted up to the stars. I was excited, but also vaguely apprehensive of the journey ahead, after all I was only 3. Then, my father called me back into the house. I wasn't to see the "device" again until I returned to my hom...

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed working practices across the globe. It has been predicted that as much as 80 percent of the legal workforce will remain transient or permanently working from home after the COVID-19 crisis ends, with only around a fifth as full-time office workers. Although law firms typically weather downturns better than the overall economy, revenues, working practices, and working culture will all change. The expected economic downturn may not directly translate into a ...

The legal sector is facing a period of major metamorphosis - disruptors are making waves in the structuring, process, and service-delivery models, and client's needs are becoming more demanding and value-focused. As the landscape of law transforms many firms will be left facing a situation of, in John Alber's words, change or die. How will law firms keep up with upcoming rapid and volatile changes to the legal sector, and what form will they take after the transformation? What will the law...

Many law firms today are far too focused on increasing market share; they should be paying attention to what makes them a more profitable business. Market share doesn't matter much if you're not profitable, and firms cannot simply grow their way to prosperity by undercutting the competition. Instead, firms must focus on value creation and increasing clients' willingness to pay for their services. The question should be: "What can your firm do better, or more efficiently, and more profitabl...

The discipline of knowledge management (KM) continues to evolve along with our ability to record larger and more varied kinds of information than ever before. Since its inception in the 1990s, it has passed through several stages, quickly becoming a credible field, and now an integral part of major businesses worldwide. Now, many have started to argue that KM is undergoing resurgence, possibly even transforming into KM 3.0, thanks to developments in artificial intelligence (AI). And, while...

Strategies for gathering and harnessing knowledge have existed in law firms for decades. However, knowledge management suddenly found itself in the spotlight as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Enforced remote working reduced opportunities for knowledge sharing between colleagues and this gap was filled with knowledge databases and experienced knowledge lawyers. Now that hybrid and virtual workforces are here to stay, these new working practices have combined with technological developme...

The last novel in Martin Boyd's celebrated Langton Quartet, which includes The Cardboard Crown, A Difficult Young Man and Outbreak of Love.At the outbreak of World War I, Dominic Langton leaves his wife on a remote sheep farm in New South Wales to enlist in the British Army. What he experiences in the trenches changes him forever; his return home sees him cast off his past and find his own integrity. He has seen the true nature of war - the senseless wast...

Our minds are like those maps at the entrance to the Metro stations in Paris. They are full of unilluminated directions. But when we know where we want to go and press the right button, the route is illuminated before us in electric clarity.Diana von Flugel warned her husband: a piece of toast that hard could break a tooth. When Diana goes to Melbourne to have the tooth fixed, Wolfie is far too concerned with finding inspiration for his musical compositions to realise the ...

An existential manual for tragic optimists, can-do pessimists, and compassionate doomersWith global warming projected to rocket past the 1.5°C limit, lifelong activist Andrew Boyd is thrown into a crisis of hope, and off on a quest to learn how to live with the "impossible news" of our climate doom.He searches out eight of today's leading climate thinkers — from activist Tim DeChristopher to collapse-psychologist Jamey Hecht, grassroots strategist adrienne ...