My recent trip to Sydney was actually planned around my intention of attending this programme - Sydney Law School Postgraduate Conference on the 29 of October. It was a whole day programme held at the Sydney Law School, University of Sydney with 'Law and Social Reality' as the theme of the conference. 

The Keynote Speaker was Prof Jane Goodman-Delahunty. Her talk was focused on the need for more empirical legal studies to foster 'evidence-based decisions to promote social, procedural and distributive justice within organisations and the community'. She strongly promotes legal researchers to embark on inter-disciplinary research and create a cooperative ventures with researchers from other disciplines.

One of the papers presented really interest me - the one by Sonya Willis, on 'Civil Procedure Meets Social Reality: Can Case Management Really Help with the Unending Quest for Justice?'. She presented on what is considered as case management especially in NSW and whether the right to a fair hearing came into apparent conflict with principles of case management.

I specifically asked on whether ADR played any role in the Case Management... Although the overall answer to that - would be it depends...but based on Ms Wilis experiences in litigating civil cases, especially, some cases are worst of with the presence of compulsory ADR. Hmmmm....more points to ponder....

Anyway, it was great to have the chance to see the university and experienced the running and  'connection' from within, since it is the oldest university in Australia :-) I hope to be back some day!