I have a bad habit of buying books which cost several hundred dollars each and get overtaken by new editions after a couple of years. I am yet to experience the pain of an expensive text I have bought going into a new edition though, so nascent is my career as a barrister.  About this [...]

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A Melbourne lawyer has written a book about a landmark Melbourne case. Michelle Schwarz’s A Question of Power; The Geoff Clark Case has just been published by Morrie Schwarz’s Black Inc which also publishes The Monthly and Quarterly Essay. Judging by the ‘top articles this month’ panel, there is a huge thirst out [...]

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On Australia Day, I watched the 2002 film ‘Black and White’, about the Max Stuart case. I had picked up historian Ken Inglis’s book on the case at a church fete the other month, thinking it was the kind of thing a young barrister should have in his chambers, and flicked through it at [...]

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I was already a fan of the first edition of Judge Stephen Walmsley SC, Alister Abadee, and Ben Zipser’s excellent Professional Liability in Australia, published by Thomson, and had been waiting for the new edition with interest. I got myself a copy the other day. It’s good, and there are substantial additions since [...]

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My friend Jason Pizer had the launch of the third edition of his book this week, and I went along and enjoyed the company of VCAT’s Acting President John Bowman, Deputy President Marilyn Harbison, and Justice Chris Maxwell, President of the Court of Appeal.  It’s the VCAT equivalent of Williams, the looseleaf ‘Bible’ of [...]

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I never really got into Richard Cook’s The Annotated Rules of Court as a solicitor. Because it is not published by either of the two lawbook houses, I suspect it languishes under-utilised, but it can be purchased online from the Law Institute Bookshop. I had access to Williams online on my computer, and a [...]

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The Bar has produced a practice guide. It is a great achievement and stands as a beacon for the Law Institute’s future efforts at promulgating knowledge of the practice rules. The Bar actually has something called the Professional Standards Education Committee. Written by Roisin Annesley, it was launched by Victoria Marles, the Legal Services Commissioner [...]

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