Financial management for a legal career: ALA, 18 August

An hour on the subject law school never taught and firms rarely raise, presented by Larisha Jerome.

The Profession Press · Editorial

Financial management for a legal career: ALA, 18 August

The Australian Lawyers Alliance is running "Financial management for a legal career" on Tuesday 18 August 2026, from 5pm to 6pm AEST, with optional networking to 6.30pm. The session is presented by Larisha Jerome, a Jarowair, Wakka Wakka and Wuilli Wuilli woman.

The legal profession produces people who are expert at managing other people's money and frequently indifferent to their own. This is not a joke at anyone's expense — it is a structural consequence of a career that begins with substantial debt, delays real earnings until the late twenties, then delivers income increases faster than most people build the habits to handle them.

Why an hour on this is not a soft option

Financial pressure is a professional risk factor, not merely a personal one. Practitioners under financial strain make different decisions about which matters to take, when to settle, how long to stay in a role that is harming them, and whether to raise a problem with a supervisor who controls their bonus. Every serious analysis of the wellbeing problem in law eventually arrives at the same place: autonomy requires a financial floor.

For sole practitioners and those at the independent bar, the subject is operational rather than personal. Irregular income, deferred fees, the long tail of unrecovered disbursements — practice viability turns on cash flow management that nobody is formally taught.

Details

When: Tuesday 18 August 2026, 5pm–6pm AEST
Networking: 6pm–6.30pm, optional
Presenter: Larisha Jerome
Host: Australian Lawyers Alliance
Registration: Via the ALA events portal

An hour is a low price for a subject with this much downstream effect.

Practitioners should check whether the session attracts CPD units in their jurisdiction and under which competency field — professional skills and practice management categories are the usual home for content of this kind, and they are frequently the categories people scramble to fill in the final weeks of the CPD year. An hour claimed in August is an hour not chased in March.