Herbert Smith Appoint Johannesburg Head of Alternative Legal Services

/ Australia, Press Releases / June 6, 2019 / By LawFuel Editors

Herbert Smith Freehills has appointed Jacquie Hodgson as its Head of Alternative Legal Services (ALT), Johannesburg in South Africa. Hodgson will provide support to further expand on the successful foundation laid by the existing Johannesburg-based team over the past two years.

ALT combines legal expertise, process efficiency and the latest technology to handle high-volume or document-intensive work more efficiently and cost effectively for clients. The ALT team comprises lawyers, technologists and legal analysts, who together provide a seamless round the clock global service.

“We are delighted to welcome Jacquie to lead the Johannesburg ALT team,” says Edward Baring, Managing Partner in the Johannesburg office. “We are confident that Jacquie’s varied experience across private practice and in-house, combined with her specialist knowledge of alternative legal services, will equip her to lead ALT Johannesburg during the next phase of its growth and evolution. A combination of global expertise and local knowledge and talent is what we believe sets us apart.”

Lisa McLaughlin, Director of our Alternative Legal Services business in UK, US & EMEA, says, “The demand for our services continues to grow exponentially, not only in South Africa but across our global network. We now have 11 ALT hubs employing over 350 staff across the globe. The firm’s decision to invest skills and resources to develop an ALT capability in South Africa has been a resounding success in terms of our global offering, and, as we begin to work more closely with South African clients, our ALT team is increasingly being viewed as a key differentiator for us in the local market.”

Hodgson is a qualified attorney who has held a variety of legal roles prior to joining Herbert Smith Freehills, most notably at Webber Wentzel, where she trained and then practiced in the corporate team, and at Exigent, where she was instrumental in expanding access to innovative legal services into the local South African market as VP of Legal Solutions.

Herbert Smith Freehills’ pioneering global Alternative Legal Services business comprises lawyers, technologists and legal analysts, located across eleven hubs: New York, Belfast, London, Johannesburg, Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong, Perth, Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne.

Together, the team provide a seamless, round-the-clock service across a wide range of products and services, in support of sectors including Banking, Construction, Energy, Infrastructure, Mining, Government, Technology, Media and Telecommunications, Real Estate and Wealth and Asset Management.

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LawFuel Editors

LawFuel editors review and publish the best and latest news on law firm develoopments and about lawyers.

Freeing Pell: The Barrister With the Case of His Career

/ Australia, Headlining, Headlining NZ, LawStars / June 6, 2019 / By LawFuel Editors

In a career of high publicity and renown, Melbourne barrister Bret Walker SC has the case of his career on his hands with the attempt to free former Cardinal George Pell from prison.

But the Court are listening, along with the rest of Australia and legal world.

Pell with his Trial Lawyer Robert Richter

Walker’s attempts to persuade the Appeal Court that his client’s conviction for abusing two boys in a Melbourne Cathedral in 1996 was wrong and that the jury must have possessed doubt about the verdict.

As the Guardian’s report noted, the English language was “ransacked” by Walker to capture the difference between

barely possible, extremely improbable, inherently improbable, so unlikely as to make it barely possible, not realistically possible etc.
The theologian in Pell may have enjoyed all this and the argument that took up a good part of the morning about the difference between “true” and “correct” and “credibility” and “reliability” and the due weight to be given to the word “must” in analysing the duties of the jury to entertain doubts about the prosecution’s case.

The 77 year old former Vatican Treasurer, flanked by four security guards like some mafia don, was found guilty of the abuses and convicted him on one charge of sexually penetrating a child under 16, and four counts of committing an indecent act on a child under 16.

One of the victims died of a drug overdose and the evidence of the surviving victim was what the jury relied upon, with his counsel asserting that the verdict relied too heavily upon the testimony of the man.

In written submissions, Walker and his legal team detailed 13 reasons why the offending could not have occurred, including arguments that it was not possible for the Pell to be alone in the sacristy after the end of mass and issues relating to the dates of the offences.

The court also heard that evidence given at the trial effectively supplied Pell with an alibi noting that there was “credible evidence” placing Pell at a place some distance from the sacristy where the offences were alleged to have occurred.

Sydney-based Walker has a leading role at the Australian Bar and frequently attracted media attention for his work.

He was one of the leading legal counsel representing tobacco companies in their fight against the Australian government’s plain packaging legislation as well as his defence of former Cronulla Sharks player Greg Bird against allegations he had assaulted his girlfriend. He also served as the President of the NSW Bar Association, President of the Law Council of Australia, and was also appointed the first Independent National Security Legislation Monitor.