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profile of john milburn, lawyer
Like many young lawyers, the idea of studying law came to John Milburn after he excelled at school debating. At the end of year 12, after considering engineering for a time, John used his OP 1 Comparable Tertiary Entrance Score to seek enrolment at the prestigious University of Queensland Law School.
"At that time we had only two law schools in Queensland," says John. "The other was the Queensland Institute of Technology (as it was known then) and it was only commencing its first year".
John succeeded admirably at the University of Queensland, initially surviving the 30% first year failure rate as it was and ultimately joining the top 10% or so of graduates in being awarded an Honours Degree.
"The Honours Degree helped me obtain eagerly sought after employment with a top tier law firm in Brisbane. Working at the big end of town for a period of time gave me an insight as to how commercial legal practice is conducted," says John.
John was trained initially in company, commercial and property law and used these newly acquired skills in commencing practice as a Principal in his first year as a solicitor in the Redlands district of Brisbane. Operating as a Principal of a practice at the age of twenty four was a huge step and with hindsight probably an overly ambitious display of confidence. "I guess I was at the time the youngest Principal in Queensland", says John.
The practice went ahead in leaps and bounds and John was approached by a neighbouring Redlands firm to amalgamate and eventually the amalgamated firm became the largest suburban practice in Queensland. In addition to the law firm, John and his wife Carmel co-established the Career Development Centre which was a highly successful legal education and publishing business. John was one of a number of lecturers engaged by the company to provide legal education and seminars throughout the state of Queensland. "By the time I left McCarthy Durie Milburn (as it was then) we had a phenomenal practice. However with a young family, my wife Carmel and I decided that at the age of thirty if I was going to make a move to try something different that was the time to do it" says John.
John and Carmel and their young family moved to Hervey Bay at the end of 1992. "We beat the sea change phenomenon and at no stage have we had any regrets at all. Brisbane was just getting too busy for us and the amount of travel and traffic was becoming a grind. Moving to Hervey Bay was an absolute breath of fresh air in all sorts of ways," says John.
John commenced his own practice in the first week of January 1993. "Within no time at all the practice got much bigger then I had ever anticipated. Since then, we have been fortunate to have had a great variety of legal work," says John. While having interest and experience in many areas of law, John specialises in the areas of Commercial, Property and Estate Planning Law.
"I have always been big on implementing systems and updating our precedents and legal procedures. It seems to me that the only way to practise law successfully is to stay one step ahead. You must keep up with your reading and continue your legal education. By spending a lot of time in developing my own internal office systems and precedents I am able to practise with a high degree of quality and great efficiency," says John.
John’s law firm, milburn guttridge lawyers, established the Taylor St Community Legal Service and John has contributed a vast number of hours in providing free legal advice to our local community.
"I have noticed that the practice of law has changed in the thirty years that I have been involved with it, both as a student and a practitioner. Initially, litigation was run as if the two parties were on parallel train tracks and the collision, if I can call it that, only took place at the trial. In those days, many cases literally settled "on the door step" at Court. Since then the system has changed and the parties involved in litigation are encouraged and in many cases directed with the help of their lawyers to seek to settle at a much earlier stage. Believe it or not," says John "lawyers do want to have an early and satisfactory resolution for their clients. We would much prefer to see a matter settle with minimum legal costs and for that reason I am a tremendous fan of the mediation and negotiation process. Litigation continues to be adversarial and I certainly don’t mind a good Court room battle however it is now much more about negotiation than it was when I first started in legal practice".
