The Retreat 2025 Program
Reimagining Boutique Practice in a New Era.
This year, we’re exploring what it means to lead and grow a boutique law firm in a rapidly changing world through the lens of five key focus areas:
Pricing, Profit & Succession – Designing sustainable models for the future of your firm
Brand & Visibility – Building a presence that attracts the right clients and opportunities
Systems, Technology & Client Journey – Streamlining operations while elevating the client experience
Culture & Team – Creating workplaces where people thrive
You! Leadership & Wellness – Leading with purpose and looking after the human at the heart of it all
Day 1 — Thursday 30 October
BIGGER: Becoming the Boldest, Most Impactful Version of Yourself in Life and Law.
In this highly interactive and hands-on pre-event workshop, Andrew will introduce a model that has shaped his own life and success: BIGGER – a philosophy and framework for showing up as the biggest, boldest, and most impactful version of yourself in every situation. Whether it’s how you lead, how you communicate, how you manage your business, or how you approach life’s biggest moments, this workshop is about expanding your capacity to think bigger, act bigger, and be bigger, every single time.
This is not a passive session where you’ll just listen and take notes. Expect to be engaged, challenged, and involved. Andrew will share real-world models, tools, and strategies that you can apply immediately to elevate how you lead, communicate, and navigate your professional and personal world.
You! Leadership & Wellness
Join us on the Pool Deck for Welcome Drinks.
Day 2 — Friday 31 October
Find the #tinsel pole
Coffee & confetti on arrival at The Glasshouse
✨ CLARISSA RAYWARD
✨ UNCLE JOHN GRAHAM
Welcome to Country
✨ MEL KETTLE
The value advantage: How to stand out and charge what you’re worth
Tired of lowering your prices to stay competitive? Struggling to stand out in a crowded market? It’s time to stop competing on price and start competing on value.
🔸When you focus on value, everyone wins – you, your clients, and your industry. But in a market where everything feels the same, how do you set yourself apart?
🔸Whether you’re an industry leader or just starting out, this workshop will help you clearly convey your unique value, attract the right clients, and charge what you’re worth.
Pricing, Profit & Succession
✨ LAURA VICKERS
High-Tech, High-Touch: Redesign Your Legal Practice For 2026 + Beyond
Know your real enemy
🔸Why those DIY legal platforms are eating into your market (and which ones keep me up at night).
🔸The awkward truth about what clients actually want from us (hint: it’s not our comprehensive knowledge of regulatory frameworks).
Build your tech-human hybrid practice
🔸Stop doing robot work when you have a law degree.
🔸Redesign your day so technology handles everything that doesn’t need your brain or heart.
Backstage tech that makes you look good
🔸Tools that do the grunt work while you take the spotlight.
🔸Real examples of small firms punching above their weight with smart tech choices (that don’t need an IT department).
The economics of giving a damn
🔸Why genuine human connection is your ultimate unfair advantage.
Systems, Technology & Client Journey
☕🍰 Enjoy a breather on the deck with coffee, cake, and the company of brilliant humans.
✨ FIONA MCLAY
2025 Legal Tech Round Up: Where are We?
A briefing on the key tech trends shaping law in 2025, with a focus on AI you can use without losing the human touch. Includes insights from a poll of your peers on favourite tools and biggest pain points.
Systems, Technology & Client Journey
✨ FIONA MCLAY
Putting AI to Work: A hands-on Workshop
An interactive session where you’ll test AI tools against real-world scenarios in your practice area. Discover what works, what doesn’t, and what’s best left to humans – so you can take practical next steps while staying still different.
Systems, Technology & Client Journey
🥗🍽️ Lunch is served! Let’s enjoy lunch in the sunshine!
✨ BEN DEVERSON
Behind the Curtain: How high performing firms actually operate
High-performing firms aren’t magical, they’re disciplined. In this session Founder of Lawganised, Ben Deverson takes you behind the curtain to expose the operational practices that set thriving firms apart. Drawing on insights from advising 260+ law firms, from sole practitioners to global firms, and the latest legal trends and technologies, Ben unpacks how top performing forms govern, grow, and adapt.
Learn why “hope marketing” fails, how lock-up silently kills cashflow, and why culture and accountability can’t be optional. Expect candid examples, practical tools, and one clear challenge: choose a single operational pillar to transform within 90 days. This session is for leaders ready to run firms like businesses.
Pricing, Profit & Succession
Systems, Technology & Client Journey
✨ DEREK CRONIN
10 easy tips to managing debtors
Pricing , Profit & Succession
☕🍰 Take a break for coffee and cake on the deck, the perfect moment to connect with others and soak it all in.
EM GRIFFITHS
In a boutique world, being “different” used to be enough. But in 2026, different has become the new normal. In this session, Em Griffiths takes you on a marketing detox to shine a light on what to ditch, what to double down on, and what will make you stand out in 2026.
From AI-powered creativity to hyper-personalisation and human-led storytelling, this session will show you how to strip back, rethink, and rebuild your marketing with confidence – so your firm isn’t just another voice in the noise, but the one clients remember.
Brand & Visibility
✨ HARMONY ALDRIDGE
What Do You Mean I Can’t Flush the Toilet Paper?
What has travelling, working with amazing female-led law firms, and world-schooling a 6-year-old in 6 countries so far this year helped me remember?
That the human experience is full of unspoken and mismatched Expectations, language barriers and cultural differences.
How is this relevant to running a law firm? Well, leading a team of magnificent, messy humans (including yourself) similarly has its challenges. Setting, resetting and resetting Expectations, understanding and adapting communication styles, having uncomfortable conversations, and connecting your team with your Vision for the business are all necessary ingredients, but are they enough?
In each location, my, our experiences demonstrated critical insights about teamwork and running a law firm.
How precisely you turn these lessons into a better team, business, life … is up to you. Will you choose to be you – unique, powerful, amazing you, leading your team your way?
Culture & Team
✨ CLARISSA RAYWARD
Day 1 Wrap up!
The Retreat Dinner!
🎃👻 Join us in The Ocean View Room for our Halloween theme dinner party. It’ll be a night of great food, dancing, and just the right amount of spooky flair!
🧙♀️🧛 Costumes are optional, but your sense of mischief is highly encouraged!
If you’d like to bring your colleagues, family or friends, you can purchase extra dinner tickets here.
Day 3 — Saturday 1 November
Coffee & confetti on arrival at The Glasshouse
✨ CLARISSA RAYWARD
✨ JOOLS PURCHASE
Owning your weird: Being yourself is your superpower.
You! Leadership & Wellness
✨ JASON MALOUIN
Tragic to Magic
Differentiate yourself and your business so that you Shine Like a Beacon to the people looking for something ONLY YOU CAN OFFER Approach ‘personal brand’ from Purpose and Vision Uncover qualities & attributes that set YOU apart from the crowd Start to Communicate in a way no one else can copy Start to connect (and sell) without relying on ‘features and benefits’ Fundamentally change the conversations around your business.
Brand & Visibility
☕🍰 Join us on the deck for morning tea… fresh air, sweet treats, and great company.
Succession – the Panel!
Lawyers, Legacies & a Little Bit of Glitter
Succession planning – but make it fabulous. Four lawyers at different stages of life in Law Land share the wins, the wobbles, and the “who-saw-that-coming?” moments of building a practice with a future that won’t end the day they swap the courtroom for cocktails. From founding, buying, and selling firms to stepping back (or stepping up!) and spotting the perfect moment to make a move, this is your backstage pass to the colourful, profitable side of succession.
✨ Kathryn Milczewski will lead a discussion with our panelists:
✨Laura Vickers
✨Lauren Wilson
✨Gawain Woolfrey
Pricing, Profit & Succession
DEMETRIO ZEMA
The Scalability Paradox: When Growth Dilutes What Made You Special
Every boutique firm reaches a point where success creates new challenges. More clients, more opportunities, more momentum – and suddenly, the very growth you’ve worked so hard to achieve starts to erode what made your firm distinctive in the first place.
In this session, Demetrio Zema explores the scalability paradox: how growth can unintentionally dilute culture, connection, and quality if it isn’t guided intentionally. He’ll unpack how boutique firms – often built on the charisma, energy, and vision of their founders – can evolve beyond that founder-driven model without losing their essence.
Discover how to turn personal drive into systems, shared values, and leadership structures that preserve your firm’s identity while enabling sustainable growth. Because the future of your firm shouldn’t depend on one person’s energy, it should be built to thrive long after.
Culture and Team
You! Leadership & Wellness
😲🎉 Something special is coming… only at The Retreat!
🥗🍽️ Lunch is ready! Join us outside for good food and sunshine.
✨ CHERIE CANNING
The Human Advantage: Anchoring in your Strengths
As the world races toward automation, AI, and digitised everything, this session is a heartfelt, high-energy invitation to pause – and return to what makes us uniquely human. It’s a rally cry to remember our innate strengths: empathy, creativity, intuition, and connection.
With Cherie’s signature warmth and storytelling, she’ll encourage you to reconnect with your purpose, lead with heart, and stand tall in the very things AI can’t replicate.
You! Leadership & Wellness
RACHAEL KARLYL
Creative Problem Solving
When Rachael discovered the magic of design thinking, she wanted to shout it from the roof tops and tell EVERYONE how cool it was. This is, that.
“Design thinking is a human-centered approach to innovation that draws from the designer’s toolkit to integrate the needs of people, the possibilities of technology, and the requirements for business [and personal] success.” – Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO.
As a lawyer, Rachael loves solving problems. But, solving problems in ways that people have never even thought of yet. That – she is obsessed with. Solving problems through a lens of design, within a systems thinking framework. The best. It is purposeful, adaptive and there is proof it works.
This session will take you through the stages of design thinking and leave you with practical tools to take ideas to action.
You! Leadership & Wellness
Culture & Team
☕🍰 Take a final pause for coffee and cake on the deck, one last chance to connect, reflect, and savour before we close the 2025 Retreat with our last session.
✨BEN DEVERSON
The Monday morning action plan!
In the Monday Morning Action Plan, Ben Deverson from Lawganised will help you turn inspiration into action. Ben will recap the biggest breakthroughs from the Retreat: the strategies, the mindset shifts, the tech tools, the culture wins, and reflect on what resonated most.
Then, in small groups: pick two high-impact changes to make in your firm in the next week, two medium-term initiatives for the next 3-6 months, and one bold stretch goal for the year ahead. We’ll map out priorities, assign ownership, and build in accountability.
You will all walk away with a clear checklist for Monday, momentum in your team, and confidence to chase the becoming your best self in your firm and in your life.
You! Leadership & Wellness
✨ CLARISSA RAYWARD
As we wrap up our final ever Retreat, Clarissa will help us reflect on what we’ve learned, what we’re taking with us, and what comes next.
Introducing the 2025 Speaker Line-Up
Our speaker line-up will showcase bold ideas, practical inspiration, and fresh thinking for the next era of boutique law. These are the people who truly embody what it means to be Still Different! They are all purpose-driven leaders, bold thinkers, and experts who’ve built thriving businesses by doing things their own way.
Across law, leadership, wellbeing, tech, and business, you’ll hear from legal innovators, industry leaders, and unexpected voices beyond the profession, all chosen for their ability to challenge the norm, share real-world insights, and help you reimagine what’s possible for your firm.
Come ready to learn, be challenged, and leave with strategies you can put into action right away.
The Retreat in a Box!
Gain access to all the #confettilawyer power & knowledge from our annual event,
The Retreat, either for the upcoming
and/or from previous years.