EXPECT A FEW HORROR STORIES

I’m Stephen King and I’m the Tender Lawyer. And yes … as you’d expect with a name like mine, I have plenty of horror stories to tell; most of them about the horrific things I’ve seen in tender contracts.

I’ve spent the last 30 years working in and out of the law. After six years at the University of Queensland I started work at one of Australia’s top tier national law firms. Almost six years later I had had enough of the large law firm scene, so I moved to a small two-partner firm where I was involved in establishing a national joint venture legal debt recovery business. I developed an interest in systems and processes, teaching myself the ins and outs of the database management system used by the business. While still with that firm I moved to Sydney to take up the position of National Operations Manager and then National Manager Information Management Systems. The business was subsequently acquired by a company that was in the process of listing on the ASX, which is where I ended up for the next five years in a variety of roles including systems integration, special projects, and director of one of Australia’s first incorporated legal practices. While there I designed and wrote a fully-integrated legal workflow management system for producing court documents and managing debt recovery litigation in all Australian State and Territory courts (that system is still in use, fifteen years later).

The winds of change led me to another newly-listed public company, this time in the legal finance space, in the role of in-house counsel, where I designed scoring algorithms for assessment of finance applications for legal claims. After a year there I moved to a consulting firm, during which time I conducted a large-scale legal compliance audit of another ASX-listed company with offices in Brisbane and Perth as well as a 600-seat call centre in Bangalore, India.

I established Legal Advantage Lawyers & Consultants in 2007, to provide in-house counsel services on an outsourced basis. Since then I’ve been providing services to a variety of business around the country, from sole traders through to medium sized ASX-listed companies, mainly in the areas of general tender reviews, contract drafting, commercial and corporate advice, dispute resolution and litigation management. As you can see, my career has spanned a wide range of areas, industries and roles in law and business.

You may think that “The Tender Lawyer” is an oxymoron, because everyone knows that lawyers are cold, heartless creatures. Well, the jury is out on that one (you’d have to ask my family), but I’d like to think that underneath this crusty exterior lies a soft spot. I live in a round house in the western suburbs of Brisbane with my beautiful and very patient wife, two delightful teenage daughters, an ancient cat, a blind old dog and her neurotic daughter and an unknown number of neglected goldfish. I’m a highly-competitive perfectionist, which means the only thing I hate worse than losing is being wrong. My clients love that. When I’m not reading contracts, I enjoy solving puzzles, playing board games, video-editing, gardening & landscaping, travelling with family, skiing and watching footy, TV crime dramas and historical documentaries.

Please give me a call on 1300 852 208 or use my contact form to find out more about how I can help you or your business. I look forward to hearing from you.