Synergy Law
Supporting Government to become 'future ready', partnering with clients to achieve legally defensible outcomes.
By leaning into complex and challenging issues, we can find options and solutions to support legally defensible outcomes and provide confidence for the commonwealth.
Synergy Law is a Synergy Group integrated legal offering, specialising in Government law and legal advisory services. Synergy Law as a capability, and an added service line, enables Synergy Group to provide clients integrated end to end advisory services and solutions which are legally assured and defensible. Synergy Law also provides Synergy Group the additional capability to look at ways to ‘lean into’ future legal issues such as: cyber security, ICT and infrastructure security, emerging energy resources, climate law, supply chain management, data sharing and information law, to support Government operations becoming ‘future ready’.
Synergy Law not only provides an integrated legal service but added depth of experience through having worked in, and for, Government on complex legal, policy and program matters. We know our market, we know our clients, we understand what you need. We will lean in, work beside you, and help you achieve your outcomes.
Meet the team
From start to finish we listen and seek to understand and deliver impact, together, in partnership.
How we think
With views on what matter and knowledge to share. We pride ourselves in collaborating. Get to know us better.
Insight
Why you can’t be certain with confidence – in FOI matters?
When applying the law, uncertainty is the last thing you want. If your task is the application of complex rules to unique circumstances and you’re looking for as much assistance as you can to do that, you don’t want to be met with a shrug. It’s no different when it comes to Freedom of Information (FOI) – so it should be a welcome relief that when you search through the FOI Guidelines, you’ll see the word ‘uncertain’ rarely appears in the FOI Guidelines – and one instance concerns the ‘Materials-obtained-in-confidence’ exemption under the FOI Act
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Insight
Frivolous & Vexatious find a new friend (Unreasonable) through Australia's privacy reforms
First published in the LexisNexis Privacy Law Bulletin issue 2024 20(10), the article was (less whimsically) entitled "Expansion of Data-Subject-Access-Request (DSAR) Rights Under the Privacy Reforms." The article examines how lawyers and privacy practitioners may be able to rely on a concept from Freedom-of-Information (FOI) law (unreasonableness) to guide them in advising on practical strategies to manage expanded DSAR rights under Australia's privacy reforms.
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Insight
Supply Chain Visibility in Procurement
Do you understand your end-to-end suppy chain and have a comprehensive roadmap on how it hangs together? Are you aware of the impact that a struggling supply chain has on the procurement process and the achievement of value for money?
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Insight
"Performance Data" and the Legal Gymnastics
Data Governance in sport is a bit like the Wild West, where entrepreneurs sign 'prospects' up to contracts that are light on detail - and tend to be even lighter on legalities. And I'm a case in point. One sporting contract I signed gave me very little ability to negotiate or amend the terms, but it gave the other party virtually unlimited rights to record collect, transmit, measure, use, modify, and alter any information related to my training and race data. This included, but was not limited to heart rate, calorie intake, power output, velocity, cadence, and location data. In the sporting world, this is referred to as "performance data".
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Insight
The power of positive leadership in procurement
Ah procurement! The term often strikes fear into the hearts of every (or at least most) public servant. Adding to these fears are perceptions of complex regulatory and policy frameworks as well as the certainty of an audit. As discussed in previous articles, procurement isn't done well, in general in the APS (or in State/Territory Governments for that matter). However, it doesn't have to be this way - and (most) public servants need not 'live in fear' of procurement. In fact, the opposite should be true - they should embrace procurement, banish the fears and develop a positive approach to procurement and contracting.
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Insight
The privacy reforms' 'fair-and-reasonable' principle - What's that got to do with FOIs?
Fair-and-reasonable (FAR). That's the standard, the test for organisations handling personal information (PI) under the proposed privacy reforms. The FAR principle is also found in the 'Objects' section of the FOI Act at Section 3(4), outlining that FOI functions "are to be performed and exercised, as far as possible, to facilitate and promote public access to information, promptly and at the lowest reasonable cost."
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