Article and photograph courtesy of Manning River Times
9 November 2011
Opera at dinner: Stacks employees and their families were
delighted and surprised when three of the waiters
burst into an operatic performance.
Future technology will revolutionise the way regional lawyers work and offer enormous opportunities for clients to save on costs and travel, a summit meeting of more than 50 lawyers from Stacks/The Law Firm heard at a summit at Diamond Beach recently.
The lawyers and their families 150 in all came from all over NSW to the Australis Resort to discuss how huge developments in computer technology and communications will change the way they work and what it will mean to their clients.
Stacks Law Firm chief executive officer Ben Stack demonstrated with a timeline how quickly developments in technology such as mobile phones, the internet and iPad led to huge changes in the way we all live and work.
The speed of technological change is accelerating. One American study predicted the world that will exist in 2030 would be as strange to us today as todays world would appear to someone who had lived in 1900, Ben Stack told the meeting.
He predicted the coming big leaps in communications technology will have a much bigger impact in regional centres such as Taree, Forster, Ballina, Goulburn, Bowral, Leura, Murwillumbah or Tweed Heads (all of which have Stacks offices) than the big cities.
The national broadband network will be a massive step forward for a firm like ours which is based mainly in regional centres. We could be hundreds of kilometres away from a client or other lawyers talking about a case and see each other on-screen, pull up documents to view on-screen and make changes as we talk.
The client wont have to travel to the lawyers office, and the client will save as the lawyers costs will be lower. Everyone benefits.
Ben Stack said some Stacks regional offices were already paperless. Everything is stored on computer in a safe and secure way.
Technology allows us to be more efficient and save time. That keeps costs down for the lawyer and their clients.
In 20 years well probably be able to sit around a conference table and well all be holographic projections coming in from all over Australia talking to each other as though we are really there.
This will be great for attractive regional centres such as Taree as people wont have to live in Sydney to carry on business across the State.
Stacks Law Firm chairman Maurie Stack said despite the technology, some things would never change like the need for initial personal contact with clients to establish trust.
The successful two day summit at Australis ended with a surprise at the gala dinner when three waiters suddenly burst into magnificent opera performances that had 100 guests laughing and cheering.
