Doug Reed celebrates 50 years of Kadina legal practice as he prepares to retire, while former protégé Kylie Mildwaters reveals what rural law really looks like when you run into your clients at the footy, navigate farm succession battles, and do your Woolworths shopping online.
In Kadina, the commercial heart of South Australia’s Yorke Peninsula, farming families have been trusting the same lawyers with their most important moments for generations. This episode brings two of those lawyers to the table: Doug Reed, who has practised in Kadina for 50 years and is preparing to retire, and Kylie Mildwaters, who grew up on a nearby farm, left for Adelaide to study law, and came back to build her own thriving practice. Between them, they offer an unusually honest portrait of what country law actually looks like: the trust earned slowly, the gossip that spreads fast, and the quiet privilege of knowing the grandchildren of your very first clients.
There is no SA Drink of the Week this episode
The Musical Pilgrimage this week is perfectly timed: Adelaide artist My Chérie releases her new single Stuck Inside My Head today, the same day she performs at WOMADelaide. It is an indie folk-rock meditation on neurodivergence and the challenge of quieting a restless mind, and it could not be a more fitting soundtrack for a week when this city is buzzing with live music and big ideas.
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Running Sheet: Kadina Lawyers And The Real World Of Rural Law
00:00:00 Intro
Introduction
00:00:00 SA Drink Of The Week
There is no SA Drink Of The Week this week.
00:03:01 Doug Reed and Kylie Mildwaters
Kadina in the 1970s, as Doug Reed (Germein Reed) remembers it, was a proper provincial town: half its current size, built around farming, animated by fierce rivalry between Kadina, Moonta, and Wallaroo, and populated on Fridays by farmers’ wives dressed to the nines for their weekly shopping. Small Woolworths. No McDonald’s. Three pubs per town, and a pub meal was a night out. The frictions, factions, and fictions of small-town life, as Steve puts it, drawing on a line from The Carpathians, were very much in evidence, including, as Doug notes with some amusement, two rival Methodist churches in Kadina alone.
Kylie Mildwaters (Mildwaters Byrth Lawyers & Conveyancers) grew up on the other side of that rivalry, as a Moonta girl who had nothing to do with Kadina. The inter-town competition, she and Doug agree, has mellowed considerably since council amalgamation, though not, they hasten to add, on the sporting field. The footy rivalry remains entirely intact.
It is when the conversation turns to trust that the episode finds its real heart. Doug is direct: you cannot advertise trust. You earn it through your work, your community involvement, and your reputation, and when you make a misstep in a town this size, it spreads like wildfire. Kylie’s version of the same lesson is more pragmatic: word of mouth on the Yorke Peninsula is the best advertising you could possibly have, which means looking after every client, every time, without exception. Her additional piece of hard-won wisdom for any country lawyer? Do your Woolworths shopping online.
Doug reflects on one of the quieter privileges of rural legal practice: the moment you realise you are sitting across the desk from the grandchild of a client you first helped decades ago. He calls it a privilege, and it is hard to disagree. That kind of continuity is particularly characteristic of rural practice. The corporate memory you carry about a family, built across generations, is something a city firm simply cannot replicate. It is also a responsibility, and one reason why Doug’s decision to transition the bulk of his client base to Kylie’s firm, Mildwaters Birth Lawyers, has clearly not been taken lightly.
The conversation takes a sharper turn when farm succession enters the picture. The number of farming families on the Yorke Peninsula, one of Australia’s premier cropping regions, is now a fraction of what it was when Doug first arrived. Farms have grown dramatically, consuming neighbouring holdings, and with that growth has come a corresponding rise in what is at stake when a family asks who gets what. Kylie, who practises in estate and family law as well as holding membership of the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP), paints a vivid picture of the legal tensions this creates: promises made about farm transfers, falling-outs between parents and children, and the litigation that follows. The old assumption that the farming son gets the farm and off-farm assets go to everyone else is, she notes, increasingly being questioned.
Doug raises another pressure on modern legal practice: the Google-armed client. He recalls a family arriving having looked up the rule against perpetuities the night before. A little knowledge, he observes drily, can be a dangerous thing. Kylie adds that this is precisely why careful, unhurried thinking remains essential, a lesson Doug drummed into her when she first started, back when her instinct was to get everything done as quickly as possible.
The episode closes with one of its most enjoyable exchanges: Steve asks about fictional lawyers. Doug nominates Perry Mason and, with considerably more warmth, Dennis Denuto from The Castle, a man whose grasp of the law was limited but whose faith in the vibe of it was unshakeable. Kylie, more practically, notes that films have given clients thoroughly incorrect expectations about everything from courtroom procedure to the formal reading of the will (there is no such legal requirement) to the idea that marriage automatically entitles each party to half of everything. As for Steve’s elaborate video will, he has just learned it will never be shown. He is very sorry to hear it.
Here are links to a few of Kylie’s blog posts about farm succession, referenced in the discussion:
Kangaroo Island: What a Movie About Two Sisters Can Teach You About Estate Planning
What Troy Cassar-Daley’s ‘Family Farm’ Teaches About Succession Planning On Yorke Peninsula
Why the Most Well-Intentioned Promise About Your Will Might Not Help Your Children
00:38:09 Musical Pilgrimage
In the Musical Pilgrimage, we feature My Chérie‘s new song, released today, Stuck Inside My Head.
Adelaide is buzzing this week. WOMADelaide is upon us, and right in the thick of it is local artist My Chérie, whose brand new single Stuck Inside My Head drops today. Written and performed entirely by My Chérie, with additional production, mixing, and mastering by Mario Spate, it is an indie folk-rock meditation on neurodivergence, spiritual longing, and the very human challenge of quieting a restless mind. My Chérie has described wanting the production to feel like summoning an inner power: a moment of connection with something bigger, almost like nature answering back. For fans of Soccer Mommy, Samia, and Wolf Alice, and for anyone who has ever lain awake with their thoughts looping at full volume, this one will feel like a hand on the shoulder.
Here’s this week’s preview video
There is no video this week.
SFX: Throughout the podcast we use free SFX from freesfx.co.uk for the harp, the visa stamp, the silent movie music, the stylus, the radio signal SFX, the wine pouring and cork pulling SFX, and the swooshes around Siri.
An AI generated transcript – there will be errors. Check quotes against the actual audio (if you would like to volunteer as an editor, let Steve know)
Doug Kylie Interview
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Steve Davis: [00:00:00] I’m sitting in Kadina at the moment where farming families on the York Peninsula have been trusting the same lawyers with their most important moments. Sometimes across generations. Doug Reed is one of those lawyers. In fact, at the day of recording, it’s marking 50 years since he was admitted. As the term goes, um, Kylie, mild waters grew up on a farm not far from here.
She left. She came back and built a practice from the ground up as well. And in fact, Doug and Kylie crossed paths at major points in their lives, um, between both of them. You’re about to get a pretty honest picture of what country law looks like. Uh, not the textbook version, but the version where you run into your clients at the footy on the Saturday.
Doug and Kylie, welcome to the Adelaide Show.
Doug Reed: Thank you. Thank you.
Steve Davis: Doug, I wanna start with you. I wanna go right back to [00:01:00] Kadina in the 1970s when Jermaine Reed started. What was Kadina like then? Not the legal work, just the town.
Doug Reed: Oh, the town was, um, a smaller than it is now, but it was still the hub for the area.
And, um, it. Uh, was predominantly a farming center. Uh, farming was the number one, the big deal around the place, uh, very vibrant with sporting clubs. Uh, there was a real rivalry between Kadina, Moona and Wallaroo. And so some of those things have changed or quite, quite a lot, but, but it was a lot small, smaller.
If you, if you came into Kadina now, you’ll see a huge Woolworths. You’ll see a McDonald’s and then we are sandwiched in between the two of them. You’ll see hungry Jack’s, uh, KFC. Um. On the run, none of those things were here. Uh, so it was, yeah, like a provincial town. About half of the population of now the farmers came in with their wives on a [00:02:00] Friday with their suits and hats on.
The wives all dressed up to the nines to do their banking and their shopping, and. Yeah, it was a, but it was a great place to be. It was a, there were great people and, uh, as a young person as I was then, there was a lot going on.
Steve Davis: So you actually just reminded me, I lived in Budapest for a number of years, uh, in the early nineties, just as the Russians were in the past and over the three years I was there.
From nothing. We went to three McDonald’s, then 10 McDonald’s and KFC, et cetera. Yeah. You had that same experience.
Doug Reed: Yes, we have. It’s just, it’s, and it’s, I mean, the hospitals have got bigger. It’s just grown all, all the, and you know, with Moon and Wallaroo, with their tourism focus and their retirement focus.
But this is the commercial center and it’s, as a commercial center, it’s, it’s grown extraordinarily.
Steve Davis: Where did you get a good feed back then? Admittedly, many people would’ve cooked a lot more for themselves. But where was a good feed?
Doug Reed: Well, it was always the pubs, the, the in kadina had three [00:03:00] pubs. Muta had.
Three. Wallaroo had about four or five, and those hotels were the hub of community and that’s where everybody went for a pub meal. Uh, and that was a night out, you know? Yeah.
Steve Davis: I was surprised you didn’t mention Cornish Pasty because of the Cornish background. Um. I know mining sort of wrapped up in the early 1920s, so well before your time, but was there, is there, was there, is there much residue of that Cornish nurse?
Doug Reed: Oh, absolutely. You probably need to speak to Kylie because she’s a moon native, born and bred and, um. The Cornish heritage is huge here, and it’s promoted by festivals and the existence of that famous Cornish pasty. Very, very big. Cornish Heritage, national Trust, et cetera.
Steve Davis: Well, I will turn to Kylie now because you were growing up on a farm here around the same time.
What did town day look like for a Peninsula farming family back then?
Kylie Mildwaters: Well, I’m not quite as [00:04:00] old as Doug, so it, we would, in fact, I, I still remember my nana going in on Fridays. It would be the one day that she would go into town and dress up and, and do her shopping, et cetera. But by the time I was growing up, there wasn’t the one day a week you would do all of those things.
We went to town a lot more regularly. Uh, so yeah.
Steve Davis: And what did Kadina mean to you back then?
Kylie Mildwaters: Well, Kadina, I didn’t have much to do with Kadina because I went to school at Moona at that stage, and as Doug mentioned, there was a huge rivalry between the three towns. I went to school at Moona, and you know, you, you didn’t associate with the other people from Kadina or Wallaroo way back then, but that certainly has changed over time.
Steve Davis: So is that rivalry dead and buried?
Doug Reed: Uh, no, but it’s a, it’s a completely different rivalry now. We, we like the, the, there was three, there were, there were separate councils, for example, [00:05:00] Wallaroo, mta, and two in Kadena. They’ve now all amalgamated and that’s been a huge turning point in terms of cooperation between the towns.
The sporting rivalry. Is there really? Still there? Don’t worry about that.
Kylie Mildwaters: Absolutely.
Doug Reed: We, we love, we’d, we’d love to see, uh, ra wallo lose at footy. Yeah, that, that makes us, it’s a bit like the crows and the power, but, but, but it’s a different rivalry. But for example, I’ve driving down this morning, down the port road towards Wallaroo to the pharmacy just before work time.
There was a constant stream of traffic coming to Kadina from Wallaroo. When I go to Motor on a Tuesday, if you go early in the morning, there’s a constant stream of stream of traffic. They’re coming to Kadina to work. So many people come up here to the center to work. Oh. So there’s a lot more cooperation between the towns, um, and the three towns gives us a bit of, um, numbers for things like hospitals and education.
But uh, but the rivalry’s still there. On the sporting field,
Steve Davis: there’s a novel called [00:06:00] The Carpathians, in which the author makes one comment about a small town. She said it was a classic small town. She said, with its frictions, factions. Fractions and fictions.
Doug Reed: Yeah, I tell you what, that that’s true. And Kylie would, would remember that, for example, in Kadina there were two Methodist churches and they were rivals, but.
The real answer to what you’re leading with these questions is it was a provincial town. It’s this area is now one of the really, uh, go ahead. Developing areas in the state. It’s one of those country areas that’s going ahead, not regressing.
Steve Davis: Yes, I
Doug Reed: Great place to do business.
Steve Davis: I didn’t, didn’t I say there’s a big housing development on the horizon
Doug Reed: here.
Yeah. Yes, there is. They, they’re continuing. There’ve been those before too.
Steve Davis: It’s bigger now. Is it the same spirit that it had. In the seventies, eighties, et cetera? Or is it a different
Doug Reed: I, I, I think it’s different because it’s really a much more [00:07:00] cosmopolitan area now. It’s not a provincial town. Like for example, um, if we wanna get some food to eat, Woolworth is open till nine o’clock on a Sunday, eight, it might be eight o’clock on a Sunday night.
There’s a real cosmopolitan field. It’s not just all farming. There’s all the other, uh, people that are here. That’s the way I see it. It’s still got, it’s got us good country values.
Steve Davis: Yes. Or look, and let’s move in to the lawyer side of the country values now, because 50 years since you admitted Doug, I believe card it’s 30 years since you were, um, but I’ll, I’ll just start with Doug as we move into there.
When you were building the client base in the early years, how did trust. Work in a town this size? How do you earn trust?
Doug Reed: Uh, well, it’s critical. Uh, trust is critical. And, um, when I came up here, I worked for another lawyer who had been here two or three years, worked for him, then joined him in partnership, and it just, yeah.
Well, I, I mean. Trust is something that you [00:08:00] just earn with time, with what you’re involved in in the community and the reputation you gain from your work. That’s the only way you’re going to get it. You can’t advertise trust. You’ve just gotta develop it as a person and as a firm.
Steve Davis: Because I imagine if you do missteps.
That spreads like wildfire.
Doug Reed: Does it ever, everything spreads like wildfire here.
Steve Davis: Kylie, do you concur? Have you eked out any method for earning trust or is it, as Doug’s said,
Kylie Mildwaters: I absolutely agree with Doug. It’s, it’s certainly something that you have to earn over time. You have to earn your stripes and word of mouth on the.
York Peninsula is one of the best methods of advertising that you could possibly have. So you have to put in the hard work and look after your clients and make sure that you do a great job. And that’s the way that you do it.
Doug Reed: Yeah. Word of mouth is number one.
Steve Davis: Yes. Which of course, a double-edged sword because that works both ways.
Exactly, doesn’t it? Um, [00:09:00] tug you are on the verge of retiring.
Doug Reed: Yes.
Steve Davis: Um, although you said it’s not released. A, an occupation you can leave is very easily, you would’ve seen some client families over one or two generations at least, I would imagine. Can you just talk us through what’s, what’s that reflection like when you’re sitting down with someone and you realize, oh, you helped their father or their mother, or possibly a grandmother or grandfather?
Doug Reed: That’s a great comment, uh, because that particularly applies to rural practice, uh, and I think it’s a privilege when you’re seeing the grandchildren of clients you had. At the start and the family has stayed with you. And, um, that’s part of that trust and respect thing, which you hope you engender. Uh, and, but yes, that, that, I think that’s particularly so of rural practices that you’ll, if you’re here for some time, you’ll follow the family through the generations.
Steve Davis: A bit like a [00:10:00] country gp.
Doug Reed: Yeah,
Steve Davis: and, and I imagine everybody wins from that because you are up to speed on their unique context more than them sitting down. Let, let’s say they go to Adelaide or somewhere, they’ve gotta sit down, they’ve gotta go through all the history. They’ll miss bits and. Whereas here you have a corporate memory with their family.
Doug Reed: Absolutely. And you’ve got the file there and you can refer to that. Uh, but yep, that’s a big part of it. But I mean, you talk about clients going to Adelaide, some do. There’s so much, and Kylie will attest there’s so much work here, uh, that, you know, we’re not clamoring for it. Once you develop a reputation, as we have, and as I know, my daughter’s birth lawyers have, the work comes in.
Talk about you. It’s the generational thing. It’s the word of mouth.
Steve Davis: Now this is gonna be awkward, but have you ever had one generation not happy with the other generation, with the family? How do you tiptoe through that?
Doug Reed: Um, absolutely. Um, country people are no different to any people anywhere else in [00:11:00] the world.
They grow up, they have arguments, they have, um, breakups and probably Kylie would be doing more of that work than I do, but. That’s an also an aspect of rural practice where if there’s a divorce or a separation or an argument in a family, quite often you know them all. You don’t want to take sides. And so our practice, for example, in many years we haven’t done family law work and we don’t do a lot of litigation.
And that’s one of the factors where if you know both parties, it’s pretty ordinary to take one side.
Steve Davis: Hmm. I imagine you almost have a little white flag in your pocket, so when you are walking down the street and you see it, you can just all
Doug Reed: wave it. I’ve got a few things. One of them is that magic wand in the top drawer of the desk that clients expect you’ve got to wave and it’ll solve their problem.
That’s one of the magic things I’ve got. Can I
Steve Davis: borrow
Kylie Mildwaters: when you retire
Steve Davis: back, um, what is it like? ’cause you were involved in footy [00:12:00] and
Doug Reed: Oh, yes. I, I, I, I didn’t play much footy here, but I’ve been very involved in many sporting clubs here, including footy.
Steve Davis: So you bump into clients. At the footy, how do you keep conversation away from work?
’cause I imagine you’ve got ethical guidelines,
Doug Reed: you’ve got Yeah, it’s a big issue. Kylie would attest to this in the supermarket, um, at the post office, at the footy. Some clients respect your privacy and others can’t help but mention stuff. So yeah, you’ve, you’ve gotta be discreet and say, look, give me a ring happens at rot tree as well.
Look, give us a ring at the office and I’ll do what I can for you. But we, we’ve become quite adept at that because it’s quite common.
Steve Davis: Yep. Fair enough.
Kylie Mildwaters: And what you learn to do, Steve, is do your Woolworths shopping online.
Steve Davis: Oh, there’s a tip. Um, now Kylie, I believe if I’m right after growing up here, you moved away, didn’t you?
Kylie Mildwaters: I did. Um, once I finished year 12 here, I had to go to Adelaide to get my tertiary [00:13:00] education, which I completed in Adelaide, and then returned here to work for Doug. Many, many years
Doug Reed: ago.
Steve Davis: So when was that? Was that 2015 or am I getting some dates mixed up? When did you work with Doug?
Doug Reed: Oh, before 2 0 1 5. Yeah.
So Chloe’s 10, 20 years younger than me. Am I right?
Kylie Mildwaters: That’s exactly right.
Doug Reed: So, uh,
Kylie Mildwaters: 96. Oh, okay. It was the end of nine, no start of 97 that I started working for Doug.
Doug Reed: Yeah.
Steve Davis: Okay. Now tell me,
Kylie Mildwaters: many years ago,
Steve Davis: what was Doug like to work for?
Kylie Mildwaters: He, he was an exceptional boss. He, he was so very patient with teaching a new lawyer, and so I’m very lucky and wouldn’t be half the lawyer I’m today if it wasn’t for Doug because of his patience.
Um, but also his level of. Skill and his integrity and the way that he runs his legal practice. I learn all of those things from Doug, so I’m very blessed indeed.
Steve Davis: Doug, I wanna take you back there. This is gonna be awkward because you’re right [00:14:00] across the table from each other, but I’ve heard in some circles, especially NBA circles, they say you should always mentor young people, mentor them, because it’s not a one way street.
You pick up things from the young blood as well. Can you remember things that you would’ve learned or, or. Cardi made you think about twice. Uh, take us through that dynamic. What was it like Blooding a young female lawyer who’s come back to this area? Yes. And keen as a mustard, I imagine.
Doug Reed: Well, it’s, it’s an interesting point and appropriate similarly to that is with your kids.
And as your kids grow up, become teenagers, it’s amazing what you can learn from them. You, you, you, you, you learn things from your kids when they come back with feedback from school. So you can always learn from younger people. But during my 50 years I’ve mentored, I think at 17 graduate practitioners. Um, I, I would say two thirds of them would’ve been female.
Um. [00:15:00] Over the years I found the female graduates tended to, tended to be more mature than the male graduates. However, I’ve mentored and trained and had admitted as lawyers, I think at 16 lawyers in my 50 years, and that’s how I’ve given back to the profession. I haven’t got involved at the law society. Or committees.
That’s how I’ve given back and what I think is a really meaningful way. So you can always learn. Now, what did I learn from Kylie? Well, Kylie’s a vivacious person. Um, she’s also more, she would be more intent to get a job done quickly than me. And so I would learn that from her. She’s very timely in her work.
And, um, yeah, no, Kylie was good to be around and matter of fact, uh, Kylie was, uh, my partner in the business for. Quite a few years, and she had three or four of her children while she was here working.
Steve Davis: Wow. And then you were saying you need, you, you, you, you left law for a little bit, didn’t you? [00:16:00]
Kylie Mildwaters: I did Steve, because I had my fourth daughter and I.
It was time to have some time out and devote some time to my young family, which I did for three and a half years before returning to legal practice.
Steve Davis: In legal practice these days. Doug Maha pointed the fact that you’ve done a lot more family law, and of course you are. A member of STEP as well, um, which is not related to that, but can you, which is all about wheels and deeds and, and estates, et cetera.
How has your profession and career changed over the years? What, what’s your focus?
Kylie Mildwaters: So as step is actually something that Doug’s been a member of in the past. And it’s the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners. So it is something that you, you can be admitted to if you have a level of expertise in, um, that area of law, which incorporates discretionary, family, trusts, estate practice, and all of that [00:17:00] sort of area.
Uh, I also practice in the area of family law, particularly property settlements, but we do do a few children’s matters as well. So my practice. Has evolved in the sense that in the past I hadn’t done much. Litigation work in the first, say, 10 to 15 years of my practicing career. But these days our firm does a lot of litigation, both in the family law, property, settlement sphere, children’s issues in the deceased estate sphere.
We do estate claims and also. Claims in relation to, uh, farms where there are situations such that, uh, uh, children and parents and or grandparents have had a falling out. And that promises have been made in the past about farms being transferred at certain times, and those as a result of the falling out, those promises are en egged upon.
So that then breeds litigation, uh, which we is an [00:18:00] area that we practice in.
Steve Davis: Of course, you mentioned farms, and as you said at the beginning, Doug, this has become a major hub, a service center for farming. I have an intuition that the way Australia’s demographics are aging, we probably have. Some increase in the number of farmers poised to retire, which is going to bring that whole question of succession, uh, to the fore.
Am I on the money? Is that what you see as well, Doug? From where you sit?
Doug Reed: Well, yes. Look, farming the, the number of farming families on York Peninsula, and this is one of the great farming areas in Australia in terms of growing crops. It’s uh, one of the best there. Leading edge farmers, number of farmers who own and run farmers would be at least one third to a quarter of what it was when we first came here.
When each family had small holdings, 1400, 1500 acres traditionally was a good size farm, not anymore. They’re much bigger farmers now. They’ve [00:19:00] consumed other farming lands and their neighbors. Um, so there’s less actual farmers. Here, but retirement and succession is a continuing issue with farming. And Kylie practices more in that area than I do.
But the value of farming land has increased enormously and that brings with it issues with one son getting the farm and other children not getting it. So those issues are very, very prevalent.
Steve Davis: This. Increase in the size of many farms, does that bring with an extra weight to questions of who gets what? If it was a small plot, maybe it would be a little less consequential than what are quite massive enterprises.
Mm-hmm.
Kylie Mildwaters: I, it certainly does. I think generally speaking, people are more aware of their legal rights. In every context. So in relation to family law, property settlements, for example, in the past you might have had women walk away in, in domestic violence situations. They might have walked [00:20:00] away and just, or, or even stayed, but now they’re more aware of their legal rights.
And so that breeds litigation again. And same thing with the farming situation, the farming land, the value of it has gone through the roof and. People are more aware of their legal rights and so question the old, uh, tendency towards leaving the farm to this farming sun and the off-farm assets to the off-farm children if there’s any off-farm assets to leave.
So that has created a much. Bigger, uh, question for families on York Peninsula as to how to balance all of those rights.
Steve Davis: And you’ve been writing some blog posts on that that go into quite interesting detail. I put the links to them in the show notes. For people listening, they can click that inside the app.
But you did point on people. Becoming more aware of their rights. Doug, have you noticed over your years an increasing in people sitting there and then perhaps [00:21:00] bringing up their phone and saying, hang on, Google says I’m entitled to this. Has, has there been
Doug Reed: Oh, absolutely. The internet. Um, I had a family, family sitting here and, uh.
The, the fathers noticed in the family trustee, the, the, the rule against perpetuity. And he’d gone away and looked it up on the net as to what it meant. But it’s in more instant society, everything’s instant and people are, there’s so many more people, more educated than they were. I mean, so many people go to uni and people know their rights so much more because of Yeah, society now it’s the way it is.
Steve Davis: Does that make your job easier or harder?
Doug Reed: Probably more difficult.
Steve Davis: Because perhaps you’ve got some headwinds of needing to help them see that they’ve misunderstood something. Oh, yes. They,
Doug Reed: they’ve got a, they, I mean, sometimes a little knowledge is, is a dangerous thing.
Steve Davis: Yes. The Dunning Kruger effect it called, uh, okay.
So we, we try and be more aware of things you’ve gotta deal with that. I do a lot of writing in my, my right, my [00:22:00] life and, and thinking things through for clients. And I need to sleep on some things and ideas hit me. Is law like that or is it cut and dried? You look at something and you go, no black and white bang.
Or do you need sometimes a. The mulling over for a bit of inspiration to strike?
Doug Reed: Well, if it was cut and dried, we wouldn’t have a job. If it was black and white, we wouldn’t have a job. It’s full of gray areas and you know, with the internet, people can solve many of their problems easily unless it’s a difficult one.
And yeah, sometimes you really do have to think about a matter before you. Come back to the client. Do you agree?
Kylie Mildwaters: I absolutely agree. It, it requires careful thought. And that’s actually one of the things that Doug taught me all those years ago when I first started legal practice, because I was all about getting things done as quickly as possible.
And Doug told me way back then, that’s really important to stop and think and, and take the time needed to, [00:23:00] to um, mu things over so that. That’s absolutely something I’ve learned from Doug.
Steve Davis: Billy Bragg has a song in which he has a line that says, this isn’t a Court of Justice son. This is a court of law.
How does, how does that marry with your understanding of this profession?
Doug Reed: Well, I’d like to think that a court of law is a court of common sense and fairness and equity, and in most times it is. I, I, I’ve gotta say, I have huge respect for our judicial system. Uh, I started out as a lawyer, you know, appearing in criminal cases and doing all those things.
And, uh, I’d like to think the law will. Be fair, let’s put it that way, but I I, I’ve got great faith in our system.
Steve Davis: Kylie, how do you sit on that? How does that line from that song reverb with you?
Kylie Mildwaters: It, it certainly is a fair system and I have a good deal of confidence in our judicial system. The [00:24:00] tricky thing is when advising clients, particularly in relation to litigation.
Is that the fairness of the system relies upon everybody telling the truth, which when you go to trial, it doesn’t always come out like that. And that’s why there’s always risks in litigation is very important that clients understand that, that even if they have a really good case on the facts, sometimes the other side won’t tell the truth.
Or sometimes their evidence won’t come out the way it should on the stand for all sorts of reasons. And that’s why there’s always risks in litigation. So our system is very fair, but it does rely on those things.
Steve Davis: Does being a lawyer mean you are better at parenting?
Kylie Mildwaters: Oh, oh my goodness. No. Uh, I guess, uh, what it does mean is that, uh, your children.
Aren’t as inclined to argue with you because they know that you argue for a living. My husband [00:25:00] often says, has in the past, said to my children when they’ve tried to start a discussion with me, what are you doing? You, you’ve forgotten what your mother does for a living. So, uh, so I’m not sure if Doug would say the same, but what,
Doug Reed: what do you say, Doug?
Um, I don’t think Laura especially, um, um, makes you a better parent. I think it’s just part of who you are. Yeah.
Steve Davis: Does it affect friendships? I guess your friends would think twice before they try and pull one over your eyes, wouldn’t they?
Doug Reed: Um, look, there’s rare occasions when a friendship can be affected by something you’ve done in the law, but
Steve Davis: oh,
Doug Reed: it’s part of life, isn’t it?
Steve Davis: Yeah. Um, now. To anyone listening who might be a, a city lawyer, what would you say is the big difference between being a country based lawyer versus a city based lawyer? What, what, what might you be exposed to that they’re not or vice versa?
Doug Reed: Well, firstly, I’d, I’d destroy the myth that come to the country for a [00:26:00] relaxing, uh, relaxing profession.
There’s just as much pressure. And, uh, hard difficulty about practicing the law here as there is in the city. Um, I, I probably, the main thing is that. Here. Everybody knows you and you know everybody. So there’s that issue where you can’t quite turn off like you perhaps put in a city practice. I think that’s the biggest pressure apart from that practice of the law is very, very similar Wherever you go,
Steve Davis: Kylie.
Kylie Mildwaters: I agree and in, in the city you wouldn’t, I mean, you still have to be aware of conflicts of interest, but there’s much more potential for that in the country because we are living locally and we find that in family law practice, we have to be very careful when, uh, clients ring and make an appointment for a family law matter if we haven’t seen them before, to make sure that we haven’t seen the other party because everybody lives locally.
Steve Davis: Of course.
Kylie Mildwaters: Mm. So we, we have to be extra careful about that.
Steve Davis: That’s where we’re at right now. [00:27:00] There’s, come to the present day, Doug. You are about to retire and finally be able to enjoy yourself, uh, and turn off well, to a degree. You’ve already mentioned, uh, before we started recording that you can’t really, you’re not gonna leave anyone out in the cold.
A lot of your, your clients will be, you are suggesting. Uh, that Kylie at, at Mild Waters birth will be a, a good person to take them on. What is something that you hope Kylie and Joel from Mild Waters Birth maintain as standards or principles that makes you feel comfortable with your clients coming under their,
Doug Reed: that’s a very good question.
Look, the, the vast majority of our clients. And the practice. We’ll be transitioning across to my ward’s birth lawyers and, um, which I’m, I’m very happy with, let me say that. And I, I know Kylie very well. Kylie went out on her own and has done a fantastic job of building up a practice. It’s now a wonderful practice [00:28:00] and she’s got a terrific staff.
Um, we’ve worked together very closely over the last few years. As firms look, look in a sense we’re competitors, but there’s so much work around that. It’s, you don’t, it’s not dog eat dog. It doesn’t need to be. And we’ve worked very closely with ’em. We’ve referred matters to each other when we can’t handle them.
We’ve, we’ve shared precedents, uh, and insights into legal issues for, for several years. And so, um, to me, I have. Complete confidence in daughter’s birth lawyers taking over the vast majority of our practice. And I wouldn’t have entered into this had that not been the case. Um, I think, um, the, the, the, the end of the day we say to ourselves that every client is a valuable client and every client needs to be looked after and respected.
And, um, the, uh, level of, of work that we do will. [00:29:00] Seamlessly fit into that firm. And I just wanna say, I thoroughly recommend that firm of my waters birth lawyers. They’re gonna be very busy. And I, there’s also, there’s, there’s another thing I’ve done to them is they, they run a paperless office. Well, just about destroyed that for them because
Kylie Mildwaters: they’re ang done.
Doug Reed: They’re, they’re taking over Manny physical files. But anyway, they’ll soon get on top of that. But look. Look, look, um, the, the values there are similar to ours. They, they do a wider range of work than us. We are more boat tech. We don’t do litigation these days, and we don’t do criminal law. We don’t do family.
But yeah, look, um, they, they’re a very good rural firm. They don’t need me to tell, tell them how to run the show. They know how to do it,
Steve Davis: but maybe, uh, you might help out with scanning some documents to pick from digital.
Doug Reed: Thank you. But no, thank you. Uh,
Steve Davis: Kylie. Um, if someone’s listening, who is one of Doug’s clients, what’s, what, if you had a chance to say anything to them, what would you say?
Kylie Mildwaters: [00:30:00] I would say that, uh, first of all, we would like to congratulate Doug on a stellar and distinguished career, uh, and that he would have done a wonderful job of looking after them. And we certainly have really big shoes to fill, but that we will do everything we possibly can to look after them as well as what Doug ha, Doug has done in the past.
Steve Davis: What will we see when we come to Kadina next, Doug? What will you be doing? What will you say? You just taking a nice stroll through Victoria Square or probably on the golf course? What would
Doug Reed: Yeah. Oh, look, I’m, I don’t have any immediate plans, but I’m, I’m going to really scale back on what I do. I’m involved in many community.
Organizations and et cetera at the moment. And I’m, I’m gonna scale back and just really relax for a while and I’ve got two granddaughters now. My son David, has two granddaughters, Georgia, Ella, and I’ve got a daughter, Hannah also. They’re, they’re all in Adelaide. [00:31:00] So, uh, yeah, look, it’s not an issue. I’m not concerned about what I’m going to do, but I certainly will find things to fill in my time.
I’m in Rot tree. Um, I’m very involved in the local bowling club. Love my bowls. Plenty on, uh, but I will, it will be much more relaxed.
Steve Davis: Uh, but you, you, this is where your, where home is. Now this is home Kadina.
Doug Reed: Oh, well, yeah. We live, this has been our home, well, my home for 50 years. My wife Leoni was from a farm at Alfred nearby, and all her family are here.
So yeah, this will be our permanent home. We do have a place in Adelaide. That we can stay in when we go down.
Steve Davis: Yep. Okay. And Kylie’s too. We’re early to ask you what you’re gonna do, isn’t it? Because you’ve still got a whole road ahead of you.
Kylie Mildwaters: I certainly have.
Steve Davis: And of course, Joel Birth has joined you, who is a spring chicken?
Well, not really. Uh, how, how long’s he been a lawyer now?
Kylie Mildwaters: So Joel’s 31, and I’m struggling to remember exactly how long he’s been a lawyer, but somewhere between six and eight years. I’d [00:32:00] have to check that Steve. Okay. Time flies when you’re having fun.
Steve Davis: Alright, very last question For anyone, whether they’re in Kadena or anywhere around Australia, if they’re, they think they’ve got a legal question.
Should they tr should they trust a local lawyer in a country town? Or should they, is there something about a city law firm that has some merit? What, what’s the thinking process that you would suggest? I, I’d love both of you to, to tackle
Doug Reed: this one. Uh, look, if, if, if the rural law is a good lawyer. He or she will know whether they can handle the matter or whether they need advice or need to send it on, if it’s a, if it’s a matter outside their expertise.
But a good law firm, a good rural law firm, can handle the vast majority of matters, but Kylie, uh, always subscribes to the view, and it’s on her website that if they don’t dunno the answer, they’ll get advice.
Kylie Mildwaters: Absolutely. It’s essentially that if we dunno the [00:33:00] answer, we know someone that we can, uh, get the answer from or who we can refer the matter to.
And we have a, uh, a, a saying in our law firm that we stay in our own lane. So we stay in our areas of expertise. And if we don’t have the expertise to answer a, a question from a client, then we refer the matter on to someone that does.
Steve Davis: 100%. The last question. In the world of movies and books, are there any lawyers, fictional lawyers.
Who actually do a good job and is reproduced faithfully for our enjoyment.
Doug Reed: Well, Kylie won’t remember this, but what about Perry Mason?
Steve Davis: Oh, wow. Yes. I’ve got vague recollections of Perry Mason, but Perry Mason was almost insurmountable.
Doug Reed: He was.
Steve Davis: Yeah. Yeah.
Doug Reed: That happens on tv.
Steve Davis: Did you model yourself on Perry
Doug Reed: Music?
Steve Davis: No,
Doug Reed: not at all.
Steve Davis: Anyone else spring to mind?
Doug Reed: Uh, no. Not, not really. No, not really. Dustin Hoffman was in a movie once, I forget what it was called now. He was pretty good, but
Steve Davis: yeah.
Doug Reed: Uh,
Kylie Mildwaters: [00:34:00] not for me, Steve, but I, uh, a lot of movies have, uh, given clients the wrong idea about lots of things, about how the courtroom works.
Uh, I often get, uh, when is the reading of the will, uh, because that. Yes. That is a, seems to be an understanding that there is a formal reading of the will and it’s, there’s not part of what the law is. No, there’s not as a matter of law, no. Families can request that, but it’s not a requirement of the law.
And the other thing I get all the time is, oh well, when you get married, everybody’s entitled to half of everything that seems to have come from the movies, but so there’s lots of old wives tales that come outta the movies.
Steve Davis: I’ve just wasted. I, I’ve started making a video to be played in lieu of the reading of my will.
I was gonna perform it for, but it’ll just be sitting out the back and not even used.
Kylie Mildwaters: Yes. I’m very sorry to tell you that, Steve,
Doug Reed: but let, let’s not forget, in one of my favorite movies, the Castle, the lawyer Denny. Now that was something the [00:35:00] model yourself on. He had a photocopier. Yes. And the vibe of it.
Steve Davis: The vibe,
Doug Reed: the
Kylie Mildwaters: vibe, the Mabo. Yes.
Steve Davis: Okay. Well that thought, sustained. Thank you very much. Uh, Doug Reed, thank you for being part of this. It’s been a pleasure talking to you, Steve and Kylie, mild waters. Thank you.
Kylie Mildwaters: Thank you, Steve.