Dan O'Keefe

Who is this masked man?

My name is Daniel Patrick O'Keefe. That should be Irish enough to 
start the Irish jokes. I was born on 23rd July, 1957 in Quebec, Canada. My
arrival cut short my Australian parents overseas travelling plans.

I live in Dubbo, N.S.W., Australia the home of the Western Plains Zoo. 
Although I live in country N.S.W. I live in town in a suburb no different to 
many suburbs in the metropolitan areas. There are a few advantages though. 
I walk to and from work. If I drive to work I get there before one song on 
the radio is finished. This means that I can't always turn the engine off as 
soon as I park. If there's a good song on the radio or an interesting item on 
the news I have to give it time to finish.

What I do

I am a lawyer, which you might have gathered from the content of 
these pages. To be more exact, I am a solicitor. I have undertaken all sorts 
of legal work over the years, from criminal law to trade marks. In recent 
times I have specialised in business law, which is a fairly broad speciality. I 
work with four other solicitors.

My big thing at present is prevention. I have been encouraging clients to 
anticipate some of the legal problems that may arise in their business. 
Pressing them to put into place constantly reviewed programs to help their 
business comply with the myriad of legal obligations imposed on them 
these days. This contrasts with what usually happens. The client comes in 
and announces, "I have been served with this .... ".

For some time, I've been introducing computer technology to my legal 
office. But law is a bastion of conservatism and we are very slow to adopt 
new methods. Wordprocessing is commonplace but the use of spreadsheets 
for costing and settlement calculations is a little harder for people to come to 
terms with. On-line services are very useful for conveyancing and some of 
us use networked diaries. Email and internet searching look like they will be 
used more than CD Roms.

I am a notary public or public notary (the terms are interchangeable) which 
is like an international justice of the peace.

I am also accredited as a commercial mediator. As yet I haven't found 
myself swamped with mediations to do in Dubbo. In Australia we appear 
to be 10 years or more behind the US in the use of alternate dispute resolution 
(ADR) processes. We are only now starting to use ADR clauses in our 
contracts. At least with a clause in the contract, when a dispute arises, ADR 
is an option the parties will have in mind.

For 12 years I lectured at the Orana Community TAFE College at Dubbo. 
For the most part I taught budding real estate agents the law components of 
their course. At different times I have taught company law and business law 
to accountants and management students. Teaching can be very rewarding 
but teaching at night is a bit hard on the home life.

In the last year or so I have taken a different tack with adult education by 
presenting pre-marriage courses. No matter how much I try to discourage 
young people from marriage they seem to throw themselves into it anyway. 
I do this for an organisation called Centacare. I only act as a facilitator and 
not as a marriage counsellor.

A little personal history

I grew up mainly at Forbes, N.S.W. which is where my mother and 
father still live. They own a little tourist complex at Forbes featuring historic 
colonial and mining buildings.

The Marist Brothers College, Red Bend, Forbes is where i attended high 
school. I enjoyed my time there and could not speak highly enough of some 
of the brothers, nuns and teachers that taught me.

I studied accounting and law at the University of New South Wales 
emerging with degrees in Commerce and Law. I worked my way through 
university. At various times I worked as a gardener, handy man, bar useful 
(or was it, bar useless) and a holiday stint as a securities officer with 
NRMA Investments Pty. Limited.

And you thought the Simpsons were weird

I am lucky to have a great family. My wife Jenny (she who must be obeyed) is 
an infants-primary school teacher. My three children are growing like 
weeds: Erin (the teenager from Hell); Daniel (the middle child); Lance (the 
youngest who is therefore the one who runs the home)

Interests

You would never guess that I am interested in computers. My first 
computer was an Apple IIe. I can't bear to throw it out and still use it for 
some accounting and banking. We use an Macintosh LC 575 at home and I 
have a Powerbook 140 at work. At work we also use a variety of PCs.

I am eclectic. I enjoy most music, with a preference for "good ol' 
rock'n'roll". Football, sailboarding, squash and tennis are all sports I enjoy 
except that my level of fitness doesn't really meet the demands of these 
sports anymore. Camping and fishing are things I would love to do more 
often. My daughter Erin enjoys the fishing. All the children enjoy camping 
("she who must be obeyed" also comes camping but puts a dampener on 
things by insisting on washing regularly).

Brace yourself