A day in the life of Madeleine Clift

05:30 

My ‘optimistic’ alarm goes off in the hope I might get up early and do something productive before work; it’s quickly snoozed before my much more realistic alarm goes off at 6.30 and my day starts.

08:30 

I jump off the train at St James station and start the short walk to work (a perk of being in the CBD). Usually on my walk I’ll start to think about the tasks I have for the day and prepare a mental to do list.

08:40 

I like being in the office a little earlier so I can settle in for the day ahead. I read through any emails I received overnight and check the daily Birdtalk newsletter which has all the major updates from our teams around the globe. I also spend some time chatting with the team and catching up on the latest news in the office.

09:00 

I start the morning off working on a piece of research I’m hoping to finish today. It was an unique topic about secondhand dealers so there was lots of work involved in pulling it together and it's quite satisfying to have a the final product almost ready to go.

10:30 

All work stops, the whole office heads to the kitchen for our end of the week morning tea. Shane, our Managing Partner, runs through some notices and important mentions (there are some birthdays this week) and we all have some time to catch up.

11:30 

I sit down with the special counsel (we have both snuck in an extra brownie from morning tea) and Shane to discuss the secondhand dealer research and our response to the client.

12:00 

A client from one of our international offices has sent us a table of questions relating to privacy and data regulations in Australia. I enjoy privacy law so I’m excited to get started.

13.00 

We have a lunch time CPD on today. Sophie, our DR Partner is giving a talk on defamation law and there’s lunch provided which is always an added bonus.

14:00 

Back to working on my research task. I have just discovered exactly what a biometric template entails and am looking into the use of sensitive information.

16:30 

To close out the day, I sit down with an associate, to discuss our privacy research task, joined by the special counsel in charge of the matter. She walks us through her review of the client’s privacy policy in relation to the questions we’ve been working on and points out where Australian Privacy law differs to European.

18:00 

I’m on my way home! I’ll take the dogs for a walk before settling down with a Netflix session to end the week.