I’ll start with the new name.
I was lucky enough to marry my now-husband, Andrew, back in 2018. Faced with the dilemma of what we would do with our surnames, we decided to take a slightly different approach to the norm. Instead of hyphenating or one of us adopting the other’s name, we decided on what we thought was a non-traditional but sensible middle ground – merging our surnames – and that’s how “Adams” and “Mason” became Adason.
It’s a little bit different (and it also added some interesting red tape when dealing with Births, Deaths and Marriages), but it neatly avoids the risk of our kids having quadruple-barrelled surnames when they get married.
Turning to my new job title, I’ve recently picked up the moniker of Head of Innovation here at Aptum.
You might have noticed that we announced last year that I’d be taking on the role of “Chief Technology Officer” within the business. We have, however, decided to make a slight change. The reason for the change is to make sure that the title better reflects what is most important to us at Aptum – technology for the sake of technology is not our focus, instead the crucial driver of our business is innovation.
Innovation and technology are two complimentary but distinct concepts. Technology can be driver or a product of innovation, but new technology is not a prerequisite for innovation. Innovation can be as simple as taking an old process and finding new and better ways of doing it.
That is what we here at Aptum are working to achieve – taking the old process of litigation and finding new and better ways of doing it for both our clients and ourselves. There will, of course, be a role for technology in that, but there is so much more than can (and will) be done.
We are already doing things differently than your standard litigation practice – that was a huge driver behind establishing Aptum. We apply project management methodologies to complex commercial dispute resolution, we make sure that we have a holistic and detailed picture of each project – both the facts and the law – from the start of a project, and we adopt a systematic approach to our projects to ensure that our clients are put on the best possible footing in that project from the beginning.
We recognise, however, that there is still a long way to go, both for us and the industry as a whole. There are still so many improvements that can be made to current approaches to dispute resolution and entirely new approaches waiting to be developed. That is our focus here at Aptum – ensuring that we are delivering the best value and quality service in the resolution of complex commercial disputes.
Both I and everyone at Aptum will have a lot more to say over the coming months about how we as lawyers can improve the way we practice to deliver a better experience and better outcomes. Over the past year, we’ve been working hard on intensively mapping out our processes to drill down into what exactly lawyers traditionally do in litigation to identify the many available areas for improvement in that process, whether by the introduction of a technology piece or through a re-engineering of a process.
This work forms the foundation of the fast developing “Aptum signature approach” to resolving disputes.
We already have some very exciting announcements waiting in the wings, both in terms of what we think are some truly innovative approaches and applications of technology in disputes practice, and are looking forward to sharing them all with you shortly.
In the meantime, though, we’re always keen to hear about how we as a firm and we as a profession generally are travelling, as well as any ideas that people may have about how it can all be done even just a little bit better.
We’d love for you to get in touch (you can reach me at david@aptumlegal.com.au or get any of our details on our website) but otherwise we hope that you keep an eye out for what’s to come!
This article originally appeared on LinkedIn
