In the early 1990’s Stephen Covey’s bestseller ‘7 Habits of Highly Effective People’ swept through the business world.

Phrases like ‘paradigm shift’ and ‘think win-win’ entered the corporate vernacular.

The seven habits were cemented into my brain in the mid 90’s and I still find myself drawing on them with fond memories of the day I first had my eyes opened to thinking in frameworks and analysing processes.

At 4am on the morning of my admission to the NSW Supreme Court Role as a legal practitioner I was curled around a toilet bowl at my aunt and uncle’s house in Pennant Hills with the worst food poisoning I have ever had, wondering if I would be able to attend. The road trip from Scone in NSW, where I was then working to Sydney the day prior had seen some dodgy KFC as part of the menu.

23 years later I wonder whether it was perhaps an omen.

There were many ideas and businesses that sprang to life during the Covid period of 2020 - 2022 and this idea is but one.

In November of each year, a number of law firm owners converge in Northern New South Wales to come together for some intense learning and creative mayhem that has come to be known as the ‘Happy Lawyer Retreat’.

The usual meetup was disrupted by various lockdown and border restrictions so the 2020 and 2021 retreat saw us meet up in small pods and link up via video conference.

During the 2 day conference I noticed that in between each of the speakers, the small group participants had intense conversations about the details of of practice.