Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Hi everyone,

We are closing the office on Friday the 23rd December and will be back on Tuesday the 3rd of January. Hope you have a nice break.

If you need our services call us on the 3rd of January on 02 4365 6556

Buying or selling?

Your house is probably the largest purchase you will ever make. If you are buying or selling a business – it’s in the same league.

When buying or selling property or business it’s worth-while to get an expert to assist you. When buying or selling a home or business there are a number of problems that come up where you will want an expert’s advice and assistance.

In many cases there are o problems and nothing goes wrong. More often than you expect, though, problems do come up. Boundaries of land are not where they appear to be, there are problems with past building work, or maybe a problem with the bank.

You want an expert guiding you through the complexities of the process. Take advantage of our skills and experience. We are not a cut-price conveyancing firm. We pay attention to detail and make sure your property conveyance runs according to plan.

If you want to know more about our property services call our office on 02 4365 6556.
(We are closed from Christmas to New Year's day.)

Employment Law advice

As you know probably Australian employment law is in a state of flux at the moment. The rules for managing disputes are likely to change very soon, but for many people - emploees and emploers - the key issues and most of the rules will remain the same.

Erina Legal can provide advice and representation to both employers and employees in dispute. Our primary focus is on achieving a mutually satisfactory outcome and where possible we look to resolve disputes quickly, through negotiated or mediated agreements.

We can also assist in avoiding conflict by helping you with employment agreements and conflict management plans - and for most people this is the most effectve way to manage disputes - plan and be prepared. If everyone knows the rules for managiong disputes the scope for misunderstandings and things getting out of hand are significantly reduced.

Conflict management plans can be introduced to parties in the early stages of a dispute or into a workplace before any disputes even exist. Contracts with partners, suppliers and customers often have conflict management clauses - and agreements with employees should also. They are most likely a business's most valuable asset, after all.

Managing your costs

Like many lawyers much of the work we do is charged by the hour. There are several ways you can save yourself money over the course of your legal matter.

When you come in for your initial appointment we will give you a brochure on how to save yourself money and time on your matter. Basically this is about planning and preparing for each visit or phone call to your lawyer. The details of what you should do depend on the type of matter. In our first appointment with you we will discuss what needs to be done and when.

To prepare for your first appointment it is often a good practice to write down what your problem is, a history of the events and activities that have happened so far and some ideas of what outcome you are looking for. You don't have to know everything - that's why you are hiring a lawyer. But have a think about the issues and write your thoughts down. And bring in your written thoughts as a reminder for you when you are speaking with us.

Erina Legal uses it's initial appointment with you to assess what sort of matter you have and which is the best way we can help you.

You can find out more by calling 02 4365 6556 and booking your appointment today. (Assuming you have a legal matter you want addressed.)

Conveyancing at Erina Legal

See our new newspaper advertisement for conveyancing. We are trialling it in the local paper's real estate lift-out section to see how people respond to it.

Conveyancing is not something we have marketed heavily in the past as we opened for business about the same time there was a strong drop in the property market. Now, with the market stabilising homes are selling again, and it’s time to let people know we can offer them the same excellent service we offer to our Family Law and Business clients.

Did you know that Wayne Brown, our general manager of Erina Legal used to be a real estate agent on the Central Coast and in Newcastle? What does that mean? He knows the process of buying and selling property from beginning to end. He can offer you advice beyond the legal part of the process. He and the rest of our team are particularly interested in keeping you informed of what is going on and why. And, of course, very happy with the service you receive from us.

If you are thinking of buying or selling a house and want to know more call us on 02 4365 6556 or email us via the Enquiries link on our website.

Central Coast Business Awards

The Central Coast Business Awards were presented at Central Coast Leagues Club last Tuesday night. The event was attended by over 2000 people from the local business community.

Erina Legal was nominated for the "best new business" award but was beaten by the team at Beauty 2a T from Toowoon Bay.

The team at Erina Legal would like to thank those who supported us and congratulate Beauty 2a T and all the other winners of the night.

(A belated) Happy Birthday

Happy birthday Denise King.

Denise, owner and principle solicitor for Erina Legal celebrated her 60th Birthday earlier this month at Kantara House in Kincumber. Happy birthday from your clients, staff, friends and family!

Financial Agreements and your partner(s)

Why wait until there’s a problem?

Naturally the time most people consult their lawyers is once there is a problem, however at Erina Legal we can help you prevent problems.

Financial agreements are agreements parties make at the beginning of a partnership, often when people first move in together, but also when partners start up business ventures or invest together in an enterprise. They are an agreement about how assets and interests are to be managed if in the future partnerships split up.

With almost 1 in 2 marriages ending in divorce it is sensible and practical to make a financial plan for domestic relationships.

Business partnerships also need to consider how they will manage a situation where one or more partners wish to leave the partnership. All business partnerships should have an agreement in place to handle the variety of unexpected or planned for circumstances that can come up and cause potential conflict. Financial agreements are critical for small business owners, as certainty around control of assets affects both your personal finances and those of your business - and as a result the business' future viability.

The main benefit of addressing this issue early is that it will reduce costs in the long run – emotional and financial. An additional benefit is that it can reduce the likelihood of separation or conflict, as there is more clarity about finances in the partnership – which is one of the main reasons cited for breakdowns of relationships - both business and personal.

Financial Agreements are quick and easy to arrange. Call us now on 02 4365 6556 to discuss how they can benefit you.

Valuing your property.

If you are going through a separation you may be planning to sell your home. Here is some information you may be able to use in planning for your future.

Domain can assist you is setting expectations about what your home is worth. Have a look at the feature at their website. Type in your postcode here and see what recent sales in your area have been.

The suburb snapshot feature does not have a lot of information about the Central Coast, but you can lookup information about Sydney, Newcastle and many other locations around Australia.

And of couse there are many products you can also pay for at the website.

If you want to arrange a professional valuation of your property you can contact our office on 02 4365 6556 for a referral. Or you can visit the website of the NSW branch of the Australian Property Institute and look up who services your area.

The API's Central Coast list of professional valuers is here.

Email Spam

Thinking of launching an email advertising or sales campaign? Think twice before you begin. In recent years spam or electronic junk mail has increased exponentially. Estimates are that over 40% of all internet traffic is spam, and that this number is still growing.

Spam messages are often fraudulent, offensive or annoying, and they often carry viruses.
In 2003 the Australian Government introduced the Spam Act. It is managed and enforced by ACMA, the Australian Communications and Media Authority. ACMA has guidelines and advice regarding how you should manage e-mail lists and what you can and cant’ do with your client’s email address. Learn more at their website

The Australian Communications Authority (ACA)’s website contains information for consumers and businesses about compliance with the Spam Act, reducing the amount of spam you receive, boosting internet security, avoiding email scams, protecting children online, making a spam report or complaint and the steps the Australian government is taking to combat spam.

Central Coast Business Awards

Thank You to everyone who voted for Erina Legal in the Central Coast Express Business Awards. We have been nominated as a finalist and are in the Final 6 for Best New Business Award which will be announced on the 22nd of November 2005.

A new website

The time has come to upgrade the Erina Legal Website.

This blogsite (and the erinalegal.com.au site) receive several dozen visitors a month. This isn't a paragon effort of web marketing but we are a small business servicing a local community and web marketing is not what we are about.

We originally put up the www.erinalegal.com.au website with little thought of how it would be used, except as a means of putting ourselves in front of people who are looking for lawyers via Google or Yahoo. Over time we also realised clients were looking at the site to investigate what sort of people they had become involved with. Just who were these people at Erina Legal. That's when I decided to start up this blog site.

The purpose of the blogsite is to personalise the online experience. I wanted to introduce people to the staff and what we are about. It was also more flexible and easy to use that the original website. (Again - we are not web marketers here.)

Now the time is at hand to upgrade the website and I am interested in the thoughts of visitors to this blog about what would make for an improvement to what we have.

If you are a client or a prospective client please add a comment (click the comments link below) about what you like and don't like about our site, and what you would like to see here instead.

Thanks for your help,
Craig

Improve your business with quality assurance

Become ISO 9001 compliant with Erina Legal.

What is ISO 9001?
It is an international standard for quality assurance systems that can help you reduce costs, and achieve better returns on investment, as well as sell your products and services to more customers.

The ISO 9000 family is primarily concerned with quality management. This means what the organization does to fulfill the customer's quality requirements, and applicable regulatory requirements, while aiming to enhance customer satisfaction, and achieve continual improvement of its performance in pursuit of these objectives.

The principles behind IS)9000 are customer focus, leadership, involvement of people, process approach, system approach to management, continual improvement, factual approach to decision making, and mutually beneficial supplier relationships.

How does this help me?
By putting systems in place to manage quality you will help improve the reliability of your services and reduce the likelihood of letting clients and customers down. If fact it doesn'tÂ’t just reduce yourlikelihoodd of litigation, it increasescustomerr satisfaction and improves sales.

More about ISO9000:2000, ISO9001 at Wikipedia or at the ISO website

Family Winner - computer aided divorce

‘The principal institution of the law is not trial; it is settlement out of court’ [1]
- This is the quoted first line of the paper (link below) by academics Bellucci and Zeleznikow.

A new computer program called Family Winner has been developed to assist in the negotiation process for people involved in divorces and de-facto separations. A pair of Victorian IT academics has created it: John Zeleznikow and Emilia Bellucci.

Basically the system gets parties to rank their assets in order of importance to them. The program then produces a recommendation of how to distribute the assets across the parties. The recommendation is based upon people’s own priorities.

The idea behind the program is not to replace the use of mediators and lawyers in facilitating separation, but in streamlining and speeding up the negotiation process and getting to the key issues up for negotiation.

With separating couples required to try to resolve disputes before filing with the Family Court, Professor Zeleznikow expects there will be a need for mediators.

The product is not yet generally available.

See SMH Article [2]
See the academic article [3]

[1] Ross, H. L., 1980, Settled Out of Court, Aldine
[2] Adele Horin, Divorce? Let the computer be the judge, SMH 21/09/05
[3] John Zeleznikow and Emilia Bellucci, 2005, Family Winner: Integrating Game Theory and Heuristics to Provide Negotiation Support, www.jurix.nl

Winners

Congratulations to our winners from the Business Expo competition. Each of them has won a USB memory stick, which are useful devices.

The winners are:

• Daniel Aitken - Trance Design
• Lee Clark - Work Smart Communications
• Samantha Woods - Vibrant Concepts
• Ali Vidler - Central Coast Printing

More Shared Parenting Proposals in Family Law Reforms

In its review of the Government's family law reforms, the House of Representatives Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee has endorsed the changes but recommended greater rights for non-custodial parents.

The committee also proposed the development of accreditation standards for Family Relationship Centres, family dispute practitioners, and contact centres as a matter of urgency.

More

Source: Findlaw

Central Coast Business Expo

A big hello to all the people we met at the Central Coast Business Expo.

Wayne and I had a great time staffing the stall and meeting people over the two days we were at the Expo, and so did the rest of the team when they came up for half day visits.

A special hello to the teams at Central Coast Uniforms and RAMS, our neighbors at the Expo.

Overall we consider the Business Expo to be a successful event for our business in terms of raising exposure of Erina Legal to the local business community.

Erina Legal has plenty of advice for businesses in all stages of their life from start-up and growth through to winding the business down or selling out, as well as at those critical decision points along the way. We can also assist business owners and managers in assessing risks and opportunities in a legal context.

Call us on 02 4365 6556 or drop by the office if you would like to know more.

What is Erina Legal here for?

Our Values

There is a lot of talk about ethics and values in the business media at the moment so I thought I wuld take a moment to mention Erina Legal's values. We are a small business so, naturally, they are all about the customer (hopefully that's you.) Here they are:

• Good advice
  
We want to provide you with the best advice we can. That measn we make sure we know what we are talking about through continually keeping up to date withc changes to the law, reading journals and articlaes and attending training courses. We will also tell you if we don't know something - and then check the facts before we make a commitment we can't keep or set your expectatiosn wrongly.


• Quality results
  
Quality results are about you coming out of our office at the end of your matter satisfied that you received good quality service, both in the legal content and personally from our team. It's about you getting value for money and knowing that we appreciate the fact that you chose us to be your lawyers.


• Trustworthy and professional service
  
When we say we are going to do something we do it. On time and in the manner we have agreed with you. When issues come up we will tell you as soon as possible. We work as artners with you in your matter and respect the decicions you make.


• Personal Integrity
  
The staff you work with at Erina Legal all have a high oevel of personal integrity. We pride ourselevs on being client focused, and wanting to provide not just good, but excellent work in all matters.

Business Law

• Draft and Review Contracts
• Buy and Sell Businesses
• Start New Businesses
• Conflict Management

NSW is said to be the 4th most litigious state in the world. People sue for a number of reasons including failing to deliver on promises, on different interpretations on terms in contracts, and when circumstances change and accidents occur.

Business law is about managing risk and maximising your power at the negotiating table. Erina Legal can help you manage risk by giving you advice on matters you are less experienced at. We can help you avoid problems in the future by making sure contracts and agreements you have with suppliers, customers and employees are clear and comprehensive.

Many of our business law clients come to us when they already have a dispute. Often that dispute is the result of contracts written without consideration of the range of future possibilities. Lawyers are trained to consider all possibilities. +

Come and see us to avoid disputes or deal with them when they occur.

Central Coast Business Expo

Erina Legal will have a stall at the Central Coast Business Expo.

Come and meet Denise King and Sarah Gowing, our lawyers, or Wayne and Craig Brown the business management side of the operation.

• Want to know more about Financial Agreements for partnerships?
  Sarah Gowing will be available to discuss the issue at 11.30am Wednesday 31st August
  
• Want to know more about buying a business?
  Denise will be available to discuss the purchase and sale of businesses, in particular Franchises at 10am on Thursday 1st September.

About Craig Brown

Craig Brown is a director of Erina Legal, and a business consultant.

Craig works with businesses of various types in improving their operations and developing new products. Companies he has worked with include top-tier corporates such as Optus and ANZ, as well as small businesses, franchises and not-for-profit organisations.

Craig grew up on the central coast and has a Bachelor of Business from Newcastle University. He studied several subjects at the Ourimbah campus and was an active member of the campus' student body in the early Nineties. Craig is currently studying for a Masters in Project Management at RMIT.

Craig likes boardgames and boats.

About Wayne Brown

Wayne Brown grew up on the Central Coast and has lived here most of his life. He has had many different jobs over the years before taking on the task of managing Erina Legal. These have included real estate management, property sales, team management for large call centre business as well as many positions in the building industry and even dairy farming. Wayne believes this background has put him in good stead to both understand the needs of our diverse range of clients, and in tackling the multitude of challenges that come with running a small business.

A keen renovator and traveller, most of his spare time though, is spent with his wife that he is very proud of, as she is a talented architect (and helps him in fixing up old houses.)

Wayne sees his customer focus and entrepreneurial ‘can-do’ attitude as a distinct advantage for his objective of making Erina Legal the most successful law firm on the Central Coast.

About Denise King

Denise King is the principal solicitor and a director of Erina Legal.

She became a lawyer after many years experience in administration, teaching, counselling and mediation. Family Law is her expertise, although she also does other legal work such as business law, conveyancing, wills and estates, Financial Agreements. In addition to her law degree, she studied four years of psychology. She is an accredited Family Law Mediator and member of the Law Society Panel of Mediators.

Denise has been involved in various local community organisations over the twenty six years she has lived on the Central Coast, including the the Rotary Club of Erina, the Australian and International Federation of University Women, the Liberal Party of Australia, the Gosford Philharmonia and Christ Church choir, Central Coast Talented Children's Association, the Federation of Australia Writers and is a member of the Law Society of New South Wales.

Denise's main interests have always been her family, music, theatre and writing. She also enjoys eating out with friends and family and spending time with her dog Buddy.

Denise has two sons, Craig and Wayne Brown who also have positions with Erina Legal.

Financial Agreements

Why wait until there’s a problem? Naturally the time most people consult their lawyers is once there is a problem, however at Erina Legal we can help you prevent problems.

Financial agreements are agreements parties make at the beginning of a partnership, often when people first move in together, but also when partners start up business ventures or invest together in an enterprise. They are an agreement about how assets and interests are to be managed if in the future partnerships split up.

With almost 1 in 2 marriages ending in divorce it is sensible and practical to make a financial plan for domestic relationships. Business partnerships also need to consider how they will manage a situation where one or more partners wish to leave the partnership.

The main benefit of addressing this issue early is that it will reduce separation costs – emotional and financial. An additional benefit is that it can reduce the likelihood of separation, as there is more clarity about finances in the partnership – which is one of the main reasons cited for breakdowns of relationships - business and personal.

Financial agreements are critical for small business owners, as certainty around control of assets affects both your personal finances and those of your business - and as a result the business' future viability.

Financial Agreements are quick and easy to arrange. Call us now on 02 4365 6556 to discuss how they can benefit you.

Family Law Review

The government is considerring changes to Family Law.

Some of the proposals under review include greater rights for non-custodial parents. Earlier this month Peter Slipper MP announced a number of recommendations for change with the intention that "there is an opportunity for both parents to continue their involvement as parents following separation."

Areas under review include:

• Changing the term 'joint parent responsibility" to equal shared responsibility" to reflect the new focus on both parents role in caring for the children.
• Providing for an obligation by the judges in childrens' matters to consider the child's best interests and the practicality for the child of spending "equal time" with both parents, rather than just "substantial time"
• The development of accreditation standards for Family Relationship Centres, family dispute practitioners, and contact centres, and
• Allowing a court to award costs against a person if it is satisfied there are reasonable grounds to believe a person has knowingly made a false allegation of violence or abuse.
  

This last point is one of controversy. Shadow Attorney-General Nicola Roxon said she feared the proposal would make matters worse by deterring already vulnerable parents from raising claims of abuse or violence.

Souce www.findlaw.com.au

Pru Crawford joins the team

Pru Crawford (on the right) has joined Erina Legal as our new admin person.

Pru comes with 8 years administration experience in the Multimedia, the building industry and Law. Her customer service skills are an important part of her worklife and that's why we hired her.

Next time you come in say hi to Pru.

Divorce Statistics

Australian Marriage Rates: marriages are declining.


Australian Divorce Rates in '000s. Divorces are up.

Learn more about these statistics at the ABS website Feature Article: Marriages and Divorces, Australia, 2003

Vendor duty and your property sale

Vendor duty on contracts for land related property will be abolished from 2 August 2005.

This applies to all contracts entered into (ie exchanged) on or after 2 August 2005. Anti-avoidance provisions will be introduced to prevent persons avoiding vendor duty by cancelling contracts that were exchanged before 2 August 2005. For example, where liable contracts were exchanged before 2 August 2005, the duty will still apply even if these contracts are rescinded and a substitute contract is exchanged on or after 2 August 2005.

Disposal duty (land rich vendor duty) will also cease to apply to a disposal of an interest in a landholder from 2 August 2005.

Selling your home? Come and see us at Erina Legal and get advice on how this will affect you. Call now on 02 4365 6556

Small business mediation pilot programme

Victoria has been selected as the trial location for an Australian Government initiative providing mediation services to small businesses and their employees.

This free service will be offered to parties who are involved in a workplace dispute that would normally be dealt with by AIRC. During the pilot, parties who bring matters to the AIRC will be offered the option of having those matters dealt with through private and external mediation provided by an accredited mediator.

While this pilot programme is being run in Victoria, Erina Legal look on with great interest. We are great advocates of mediation, especially when the parties to a dispute have an interest in working together in the future, or continuing a relationship of some sort into the future. Examples go beyond employers and their workforce, and include suppliers and customers as well as domestic relationships such as families and neighbours.

If you need a mediator contact us at Erina Legal and we'll discuss your options with you.

Looking for a Justice of the Peace?

Wayne Brown (right) at Erina Legal is a registerred JP and is available to witness documents.

Or you can look here to find JP's in other areas.

The functions of a Justice of the Peace under the Justices of the Peace Act 2002 are primarily:

• administering oath declarations or affidavits, and taking statutory declarations and affirmations principally under the Oaths Act 1900;


• witnessing signatures; and


• attesting and certifying documents.

Please call to check Wayne is available on 02 4365 6556.

Business Expo 2

Erina Legal is one of the Central Coast’s fastest growing law firms. Positioned in the busy CBD of Erina our Firm is dedicated to client satisfaction through positive outcomes and attention to detail. Focusing on Business Law, Family Law and Property Erina Legal is a one-stop-shop for all your legal needs.

Our focus at the CCBE will be to present information critical to new and growing businesses:

Manage your Legal Risks

Advice on buying and selling businesses

Reviewing Contracts (e.g. Franchise agreements)

We also provide advice and representation in other areas of law such as

Family law,

Conveyancing and

Wills and Estates

Central Coast Business Expo

The team from Erina Legal will be at the Central Coast Business Expo on Wednesday 21st August and Thursday 1st of September.

We have been thinking about what sort of things would be useful for us to provide to the area's business community. If you have an idea email it to us via the company website (see the links to the right.)

Sarah Gowing

Sarah Gowing has started at Erina Legal.

After finishing her law degree at Macquarie University Sarah moved to Canberra to work at the Department of Immigration, Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs (DIMIA.) She has recently moved back to the Central Coast and is now part of the team at Erina Legal.

Sarah has a particular interest in practicing in the area of family law continuing to build the firm's capacity and skills in the area.

Sarah has just moved to the Central Coast after living in Canberra for three and a half cold years. She is very much enjoying the Central Coast climate. While not yet a parent she is a devoted carer of a German Shepherd Kelpie cross named Ulrick and a Burmese Tonkinese Cross kitten named Honey. She is enjoying working with clients and the team at Erina Legal very much.

New Yellowpages ad

We have a new Yellow Pages ad.

Wayne designed the new ad and there have been a few changes. The primary change is the colours and logo, but the advertisement also focuses on saying more withless words... We hope making it a simpler presentation of what we do will achive that.

And of course the photo has changed. It's a colour photo of the team - Wayne, Rochelle, Mum and me.

Wayne Brown

Wayne, my brother - manages the office, runs most of the conveyancing activities and deals with problems when they happen. Before joining Erina Legal Wayne was working for Clark Bros real estate at Tumbi.

Wayne got married in 2003 to Kelly. Here is a picture from their wedding day. They got married at Vanuatu on the beach.

Denise King

Denise King is our principal solicitor. Denise has lived on the Central Coast since 1978 and has had a number of jobs and been involved in many community organisations and projects over the years.

She's my mum.

Say Hello t the team at Erina Legal

Say hi to the team at Erina Legal.

From right to left: Wayne, Denise, Kristine, Rochelle, Craig

Erina Legal

Erina Legal is a law firm at Erina NSW.

The main areas of practice for the firm are family law, conveyancing and property law, and wills and estates.

It's a family business. Denise King is Wayne and my mother. It isn't so bad working with Family after all.

Visit www.erinalegal.com.au if you want to learn more.