Stephen Witham (pictured) moved into Michael Flaherty's flat. The relationship quickly soured when Witham assaulted Flaherty's girlfriend, and stood over people for drugs and money. So Flaherty got some mates together, hit Witham about with baseball bats, hogtied him with ropes and cable ties, wrapped him in a doona, popped him in [...]

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The government has finally introduced the Evidence Bill, 2008 which, when passed, will make Victoria the 4th jurisdiction (after the Commonwealth, NSW, ACT, and Tasmania) to adopt the uniform evidence legislation. If the Bill is passed and not proclaimed beforehand, it will commence at the end of 2009. It is a good development, because some [...]

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The Times has put online facsimiles of the original newspaper law reports of 200 classic cases which have been influential in moulding British law.  The Times Law Reports are actually to be found daily in The Times.  I met an urbane thong vendor in a small seaside village near Columbo once who read them religiously, [...]

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Update: The nice thing about blogging compared with, say, writing a book (not that I would know) is the interactivity.  Lawyers are obviously still a bit chary of the comment function, given how many of them email me rather than comment.  Nothing prompts the sharpening of e-pencils quite like an error, and it seems I [...]

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Julian Burnside QC is one of 4 Victorians whom I know to have had Wikipedia entries as barristers. The others are Mark Dreyfus QC, Lex Lasry QC, and Peter Faris QC. (Are there any others?) Julian Burnside has become a writer, Mark Dreyfus a federal politician, and Lex Lasry a judge of the [...]

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The Third International Legal Ethics Conference is to be held between 13 and 16 July 2008 on the Gold Coast. It costs $500 or $220 a day. Queensland's Chief Justice de Jersey, who has written at least a few disciplinary decisions which I happen to have stumbled across, is a keynote speaker, along with [...]

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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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I'm just going to cut and paste this article from Legal Blog Watch, and hope that its author Caroline Elefant won't mind. I have little to say on the topic which is not already pithily set out by her, but will draw your attention to one section of the book in particular, the bit on [...]

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President Maxwell spoke at Jason Pizer's book launch the other night. There is no nonsense about him, and no hubris. I liked the way he sorted out Mr He's case, one which was sufficiently memorable for him to make reference to it in passing in his speech. The President is at pains to [...]

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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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