Dr Dadar Ahmadi-Pirshahid

5.30 AM

I groggily wake up to the sound of my first alarm and check my emails on my phone. I have the privilege of working with lawyers and clients around the world thanks to the K&L Gates Global Platform. Lately, I have been working closely with lawyers in the United States and Singapore and need to check that my overseas counterparts don’t need anything urgently. Some days I immediately start working from home to get through an urgent workload. Most days I get to slump back into bed.

7.30 AM

My second alarm goes off. Time to head to the office! I have a shower, and walk to the office, picking up some breakfast on the way or shortly after arriving.

9.00 AM

I arrive at my desk and log in. I am on the external bench of a leading global cloud computing and information services provider and perform my work for that client on a separate dedicated laptop. I check both my K&L Gates and external bench emails for anything that has come through this morning.

9.15 AM

I have a few matters that need to be progressed today.  I need to allow time for the supervising lawyer on each matter to settle my work before it is delivered to the client so my mornings are focused on drafting the advice or transactional documents that need to be delivered. Today, I need to provide advice on a vendor’s terms and conditions, flagging major issues and suggesting amendments to make the terms more favorable to our client, and I need to draft a bespoke clause requiring a counterparty to make warranties that they are not aware of anything that would pose certain risks against which we would like our client to be protected.

11.00 AM

I receive an email labelled URGENT. A counterparty on a services agreement has asked for a change before they will formally agree, by signature, to the expanded budget added by a deed of amendment I sent to them days ago. The budget under the client’s current agreement with the counterparty runs out tomorrow so we need the counterparty to sign the amending document TODAY. I drop everything and immediately draft the requested change, flagging to my supervising lawyer that we have an urgent request that I will need them to settle ASAP. I wrap this task up in less than an hour.

12.30 PM

I send off today’s deliverables to each respective supervising lawyer to be settled. Normally I would go across the road for lunch at a nearby Persian café but today I have a social event planned with the clerks. I head down to the training rooms and start to set up.

1.00 PM

The clerks collect in the training rooms, enjoying lunch provided by the firm. Once people have had a chance to eat we proceed with the event - we play Monikers with ChatGPT! ChatGPT is fast at guessing answers but the clerks are faster! We close off the event by talking a bit about the role AI is likely to play in the legal profession in the coming years. 

2.00 PM

I duck into a meeting room reception has assigned for me to take a Teams call. Our client’s in-house counsel is having a meeting with their external bench to provide feedback and to take questions on procedure. I make sure to clarify any questions about which I am unsure.

3.00 PM

My supervising lawyers have emailed me feedback to implement on my deliverables. It’s getting close to C.O.B so I stay in the meeting room and press a button to call reception for a coffee order. Can’t afford the 3.00 pm slump!

4.00 PM

I’ve implemented my supervising lawyer’s feedback and send the deliverables back for final approval and to be sent to the client. I head back up to my desk, thanking reception for the coffee.

4.30 PM

One of the senior lawyers in the team asks for my capacity. I am doing OK today so I let them know that I can take on more work. They give me instructions relating to a matter they have been working on for the past few months. The deal is coming to a close and my supervising lawyer would like me to do a final review on the agreement. I make a note in my to-do list to come back to this tomorrow.

5.00 PM

When I am not on top of things, I’d continue to work into the night to finish the deliverable. Today, I am on top of my deliverables, so I start looking at what has been happening in the information technology industry. I scan a few sources, including alerts set up by our librarian, LinkedIn and the Australian Financial Review, and look for developments we can post about on our team’s Cyber Law Watch blog. I find something! The government has announced changes to the Security of Critical Infrastructure (SOCI) legislation. I am working to build a reputation for having SOCI expertise so I write up a short piece providing some insight on the proposed changes. I send the draft to my supervisors to approve. I make a note in my to-do list to follow up on it tomorrow.

7.00 PM

Usually, this is time to go home. If there is a social event in the evening, I might go to that and enjoy some drinks with colleagues. Otherwise, I’ll continue working on one of my projects. Tonight I am completing a tutorial on Structured Query Language (SQL) because I need to more efficiently store and access information in the browser based game I am developing.

11.30 PM

I have a superstition that it is harder to fall asleep after midnight. Time is running out before the carriage turns into a pumpkin Cinders! I go to bed. No matter how bad, stressful or tiring the day has been, I know tomorrow is a new day. Time to lie still in the dark, applying my real expertise!

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