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What pre­vents peo­ple from being able to reach an out of court settlement?

In Brief — Why are peo­ple unable to reach an out of court settlement? The two main rea­sons why sep­a­rat­ing cou­ples are unable to reach an out of court set­tle­ment are unre­al­is­tic expec­ta­tions and deci­sion mak­ing being cloud­ed by emotions. Unre­al­is­tic expectations When one par­ty has unre­al­is­tic expec­ta­tions about their enti­tle­ments, respon­si­bil­i­ties…

What hap­pens regard­ing child vis­i­ta­tion rights when blend­ed fam­i­lies divorce?

The blend­ed fam­i­ly (step-fam­i­ly) In a blend­ed fam­i­ly, com­mon­ly known as a step-fam­i­ly, one or both part­ners have chil­dren from pre­vi­ous rela­tion­ships. So what hap­pens if the blend­ed fam­i­ly then breaks down? Does the step­par­ent have vis­i­ta­tion rights with their stepchild? Step-par­ents have rights Under the Fam­i­ly Law Act (Cth), chil­dren have a right to…

Rela­tion­ship break­down check­list — what should you do if you separate?

Finan­cial steps to consider Check all joint accounts and home loan redraws. Change PINs and pass­words. With­draw sur­plus funds or restrict access. Speak to your bank. Check all joint cred­it accounts, includ­ing cred­it cards, store cards and over­drafts. Restrict access or can­cel cards and get new ones. If you do not have a bank…

Swaab wel­comes new fam­i­ly law associate

We are pleased to announce the appoint­ment of Car­la San­to as an asso­ciate to our esteemed fam­i­ly law team. Car­la is expe­ri­enced in all areas of fam­i­ly law includ­ing prop­er­ty mat­ters, par­ent­ing mat­ters, bind­ing finan­cial agree­ments, child sup­port agree­ments and spousal main­te­nance. She is a pro­fi­cient nego­tia­tor in finan­cial mat­ters and her…

Swaab builds on prop­er­ty team

Stacey Collins has joined Swaab Attor­neys as a senior asso­ciate, expand­ing the fir­m’s capa­bil­i­ty in their prop­er­ty team. Stacey has act­ed for a range of large and medi­um sized devel­op­ers, util­i­ty com­pa­nies and gov­ern­ment bod­ies. Stacey has expe­ri­ence in both com­mer­cial and lit­i­ga­tion law out­side of her exten­sive expe­ri­ence in prop­er­ty law…

Dis­abled Employees

In Brief Peo­ple often judge a book by its cov­er and this still applies when it comes to the judg­ments we make about each oth­er. In light of the pro­posed anti dis­crim­i­na­tion leg­is­la­tion, this arti­cle out­lines what dis­abil­i­ty dis­crim­i­na­tion is, the excep­tions which allow dis­crim­i­na­tion and how the sup­port­ed wage sys­tem assists…

War­wick Ryan fea­tured in Lawyers Weekly

Swaab employ­ment part­ner War­wick Ryan has been fea­tured in the Lawyers Week­ly Part­ner Pro­file. War­wick talks about why he enjoys his work at Swaab, ​“to me it’s being able to solve prob­lems for my clients that enable them to move for­ward with their lives and con­tin­ue to run suc­cess­ful businesses.” See…

Hir­ing Dis­abled Employees

In Brief Peo­ple often judge a book by its cov­er and this still applies when it comes to the judg­ments we make about each oth­er. In light of the pro­posed anti dis­crim­i­na­tion leg­is­la­tion, this arti­cle out­lines how the sup­port­ed wage sys­tem assists with the employ­ment of dis­abled persons. What is the sup­port­ed wage system…

How can an SME avoid busi­ness fail­ure? Some use­ful tips to guide you.

In Brief Two recent sur­veys of SME busi­ness own­ers and their advis­ers revealed some key rea­sons why busi­ness­es fail. Rea­sons for failure Accord­ing to a CCH sur­vey, SME own­ers believe that most busi­ness fail­ures are a result of poor cost man­age­ment, whilst many of their advis­ers believe that fail­ure is often due to a poor­ly-designed busi­ness…

Pre-pack­aged insolvencies

What is a pre-pack? At Swaab, we have seen an increase in ​“pre-pack­aged insol­ven­cies” by dis­tressed com­pa­nies. ​“Pre-packs”, as they are known, are arrange­ments where the sale of all or part of a com­pa­ny’s busi­ness and/​or assets is nego­ti­at­ed with a pur­chas­er (often one asso­ci­at­ed with the com­pa­ny or its man­age­ment) pri­or to…

Swear­ing at work — can it cost you your job?

In Brief What is appro­pri­ate and inap­pro­pri­ate con­duct in the work­place is con­stant­ly evolv­ing. Whether swear­ing is regard­ed as offen­sive is often informed by the con­text, the type of swear­ing and the audi­ence. The ques­tion of whether swear­ing at work can cost you your job is a high­ly rel­e­vant one. Sev­er­al cas­es…

Intro­duc­ing the ear­ly years qual­i­ty fund — are you eli­gi­ble to receive funding?

This year the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment announced the Ear­ly Years Qual­i­ty Fund as part of its Nation­al Qual­i­ty Agen­da for ear­ly child­hood edu­ca­tion and care. There will be an addi­tion­al $300 mil­lion fund­ing to sup­port child­care ser­vice providers to pay a $3 per hour wage increase to Cer­tifi­cate III qual­i­fied edu­ca­tors…

3D print­ing — Top 10 IP challenges

In brief 3D scan­ning and print­ing tech­nol­o­gy has the poten­tial to rev­o­lu­tionise man­u­fac­tur­ing, like the rise of the per­son­al com­put­er chal­lenged the ortho­doxy of the tra­di­tion­al world of com­put­ing. As the avail­abil­i­ty and ease of use 3D print­ing tech­nol­o­gy increas­es, and the price drops, the tech­nol­o­gy will gain wider use…

ACCC takes first enforce­ment action under ​“unfair con­tract” laws in the Aus­tralian Con­sumer Law

In Brief- Don’t be caught in the ACC­C’s crosshairs The Aus­tralian Com­pe­ti­tion and Con­sumer Com­mis­sion (ACCC) has start­ed to take enforce­ment action against stan­dard form con­sumer con­tract terms that it con­sid­ers to be unfair and unenforceable. Nation­al laws pro­scrib­ing unfair con­tract terms, includ­ed in the Aus­tralian Con­sumer Law (ACL), came…

2013 Swaab Promotions

Swaab has announced its Asso­ciate and Senior Asso­ciate pro­mo­tions for 2013. Lawyers Eliz­a­beth DeBono and Kel­ly Mar­shall have both been pro­mot­ed to the role of asso­ciate, and Tom John­ston has been pro­mot­ed to the role of Senior Asso­ciate. Both Eliz­a­beth and Tom are a part of our lit­i­ga­tion prac­tice and Kel­ly…