Updates & Insights

This article was written by Jialin Liu Solicitor at W & G Lawyers.

Serving court documents is often one of the first and most important steps in a legal matter. Whether you are commencing a debt recovery claim, civil litigation, family law proceedings, or a sole application for divorce, the other party usually needs to be properly notified before the matter can move forward.

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This article was written by Jialin Liu Solicitor at W & G Lawyers.

Following separation, parenting arrangements and child support are two separate legal issues. However, they are often confused.

Many parents assume that if care arrangements are shared equally, no child support will be payable. Others believe that the parent who spends more time caring for the children should automatically receive more financial support. Under Australian law, neither assumption is necessarily correct.

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This article was written by Nancy Wang Principal Solicitor at W & G Lawyers. 

In an earlier article we looked at what happens when a trust deed cannot be found. There is a quieter problem that is, in some ways, more dangerous — because the deed is sitting right in front of you, fully typed, neatly formatted, and apparently signed. The trouble is how it was signed. Increasingly we are seeing trust deeds, variation deeds, and deeds appointing or removing trustees where an image of someone’s signature has simply been dropped into the document — copied from an earlier file, lifted from a scan, or pasted from a photo — rather than properly signed.

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This article was written by Melinda Gao Principal Solicitor at W & G Lawyers. 

What is Money Laundering?

Money laundering is when someone takes money earned through crime — say, from drug dealing or fraud — and tries to make it look like it came from a legitimate source. Anti-Money Laundering (AML) laws exist to stop this from happening by requiring certain businesses to check who their clients are and watch out for anything suspicious.

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This article was written by Nancy Wang Principal Solicitor at W & G Lawyers. 

Lost trust deeds are far more common than most clients expect. An adviser retires and their files are dispersed, a family member passes away and their papers are cleared out, an office relocates and a folder never resurfaces — and the single document underpinning an entire trust structure simply vanishes. The trust may have operated smoothly for decades, but the moment someone needs the original deed, its absence becomes a real and pressing problem.

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This article was written by Jialin Liu Solicitor and Nancy Wang Principal Solicitor at W & G Lawyers. 

When you are facing a legal problem — a disputed lease, an estate to organise, a property settlement after separation — it is natural to open an AI tool and type in your question. Within seconds you get something that sounds clear and structured, sometimes with section numbers and case names attached.

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Source: This article is translated and adapted from “Conflict Issues,” an English article written by our colleague at the Bar, Isaac Douglas of Counsel. The original appeared in the member contributions section of Roundtable, Autumn 2026.

This article was written by Melinda Gao Principal Solicitor at W & G Lawyers. 

In family law and other litigation matters, it is not uncommon for clients to change law firms. However, when a lawyer moves from one firm to another — particularly where that lawyer has previously had access to the opposing party’s case materials — whether the new firm may continue to act for its existing client often raises serious conflict-of-interest questions.

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This article was written by Melinda Gao Principal Solicitor at W & G Lawyers. 

Every time a client first approaches our firm, they are often “interrupted” by a series of questions: please present your identification, please confirm your details, please wait while we run a conflict-of-interest search. Some clients feel puzzled, or even a little annoyed, viewing this as bureaucratic red tape that slows down resolving their problem. But as practising lawyers, we want to say to every client in earnest: identity verification and conflict-of-interest checks are not only our legal obligation — they are the first line of defence protecting your own lawful rights and interests.

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This article was written by Simone Garcia Solicitor at W & G Lawyers.

When a legal dispute ends, the question of who pays for it is rarely an afterthought. Court cases can be expensive, and the party who succeeds will often want to recover what the case has cost them. This is where a costs order comes in. Understanding how costs orders work — how they are made, how the amount is worked out, and what happens if they go unpaid — can make a real difference to anyone involved in a court or tribunal matter in Queensland.

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This article was written by Nancy Wang Principal Solicitor at W & G Lawyers. 

When a company fails, the people it owes money to are often the ones left most in the dark. The directors step back, an outside professional — called an external administrator (an administrator or liquidator) — takes over the company’s records, and you, the creditor, still have to make hard decisions. Should you make a claim? Should you sue? Is it worth the money and effort? The law helps by giving you a right to ask for information, and a way to force the issue if you’re refused. Here’s how that works in Australia.

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