"I am, therefore I blog" - What This Blog is About

So, I've started a blog. "Why?" is a question I've asking myself too. It's not as if I need yet another layer of responsibility on top of I'm already doing. There are probably several answers but one I keep coming back to concerns my reduced ability, when I'm going about my work, to simply confer with and mull over mostly work, client and other professional matters. I'm a lawyer in sole practice. It hasn't always been that way. Professionally, I've only ever worked for 3 employers - a small firm in country NSW for about 18 months or so, a large medium-sized Sydney firm for over 10 years, and since then in my own practice, the first 8 years of which I was in partnership. The one thing I can't now participate in is that constant banter, collaboration, and consulting one has with their immediate work colleagues - the foil to bounce ideas off.

The idea of a journal is attractive in that putting an idea into print helps me ponder, and focus the mind on an issue. I suppose it's much like writing an essay, you have to analyse and justify, or at least advocate, the point you're making. So, why not just a journal, why publish? Opening one's comments to at least the possibility of scrutiny will, hopefully at least, draw the mind to exercise a degree of respectability and responsibility - a loose form of accountability, I suppose.

Having not gone down such a path before, it's difficult to predict where this blog will venture. I expect it will be somewhat organic, I'll express opinions, it will develop and evolve over time, and it will wander. I suppose I can say what I think it will be about; so here's a short list. It will be interesting to revisit this list in a year's time:

This blog will probably be about:

• Mostly conveyancing matters. There are so many other issues, but I wanted to pick one, so this is it. Conveyancing is something that most non-lawyers can relate to. Whereas most people don't expect to see a lawyer in their lifetime (or hope not to) when they do, it will usually be when they're buying, selling or leasing a property. Whilst conveyancing mostly encompasses contract law, to which there are many aspects, many other areas can come into conveyancing transactions - wills and estates is one, purchasing a related business another, injunctive relief is yet another. Many consider conveyancing to be transactional, straightforward, "easy", "form filling" - until there's a problem and it affects them personally. Trust me. It's a serious area of the law. If not handled properly with a sound based systematic approach, suddenly it can so easily become a nightmare - why risk that? I hope over time to comment on and flesh out some of these ideas.
• I expect I'll occasionally comment on other areas that interest me, mostly concerning areas that I work in, but not always necessarily so. Just reading my former news items shows that I have an interest in franchise issues, for example.
• There are a number of aspects in my practice. As I continue to work and develop each of those, I may choose to express thoughts here on some of those aspects
• Engagement. Should anyone (anyone??) wish to comment, it will be interesting for me to see them and perhaps even respond to.

We'll see how things turn out.

From time to time over the past year I've posted occasional commentaries and small news items on the News page on this website. This blog will in all likelihood replace the function of that page. I'll keep that News page where it is for a short time after which I intend to archive it but keep it accessible.

Please feel free to join me at any time perhaps leave a comment or two, where desired. Welcome.