Now is both a busy time and an exciting time for telecommunications media and technology (TMT) practices. New technologies and forms of communication are being developed at a faster pace than ever before, and it seems every advance is bringing with it a novel range of legal issues and opportunities. Yet this is only the tip of the iceberg.

Many businesses are overhauling their entire IT systems for the first time in a long time; new and traditional media companies are spending again; and privacy laws are being used (and abused) like never before. 

With both the Australian and New Zealand governments at the start of their largest-ever technology projects, calling the current state of play simply a boom doesn’t begin to do it justice. In the midst of such a massive increase in work, clients and lawyers on both sides of the Tasman are becoming more sophisticated and, as a result, expect more than ever from their legal advisers.

One of the main consequences of this is that the medium-sized and boutique firms seem to be gaining an increasingly larger slice of the TMT pie, while a group of big firms still dominates the major project and telecommunications space.

IT upswing a corollary of not spending

Sydney-based Gilbert+Tobin partner Peter Leonard thinks one of the driving forces behind the glut of legal work has actually been the longstanding unwillingness of corporations in the region to invest heavily in technology. “Most corporations in Australia have kept a tight lid on tech expenditure for the past six or eight years,” he says. “Their reluctance to spend well and truly predated the GFC and meant that a lot of companies – including banks and financial services – went into the GFC significantly behind in the tech-refresh cycle.”

Go to page: 1 2 3 4 5 6