No win, lots of fees – remembering Copper 7 … Law and Social Work get cognate at U.Syd … Judge Felicity – feisty telly star … Wendler’s marmalade – by appointment ... more

Jaws drools at Melbourne’s new darling of nosh … Thriller mushrooms … Ethereal gnocchi … Whimsical twists … Experimental meringues … Al fresco plating ... more

Elections are less than eight months away for long-suffering NSW voters … Are the Liberals sticking to the promise not to engage in a law and order auction? ... The new agenda is rehabilitation, with punitive add-ons … The political straddle is alive and well … Samantha Bowers reports ... more

Justinian is relaunching with a new design … To entice you to become a full-flooded subscriber we’re offering a once-off subscription discount of 63% ... $110 instead of the usual rate of $295 … Seize the moment … Click for the details ... more

“You have a right to a speedy trial – unless they need to torture you first” ... The media’s characterisation of waterboarding – it used to be called torture, now it’s nothing special … Americans stripped of their citizenship by transport safety bureaucrats … Our Man in Washington reports ... more

MasterChef and its lawyer cooks … A round or two with Dyson Heydon is excellent training for plating-up to George, Gary and Matt … Leaving the brulée off the crème would be akin to omitting the vitals of a contract … Vicki Mole blogs ... more

Lawyer advertising … Self-regulation keeps the lean and hungry lawyers at bay and controls the snake oil salesmen … Ad hocery galore … Why should the industry trade unions decide what lawyers can spruik? ... Brydens (when winning is everything) takes on the regulators … Tulkinghorn goes to town ... more

Conflicts lawyers salivating … Hong Kong court told to butt out of case involving claims of sovereign immunity … US hedge fund wants it’s money back … Arbitral award over debts owed by state enterprises … Percy Lo-kit Chan files this report ... more

Kookaburras and copyright … Media neglects critical points in reporting damages decision in Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree v Down Under ... Larrikin’s claim “excessive, overreaching and unrealistic” ... Kookaburras are greedy creatures … Leanne O’Donnell reports ... more

Stephen Estcourt QC, foodie, blogger and social media fiend, reveals how Web 2 has expanded his life and work … #willingnesstohelp ... more

Mandy furiously promoting The Third Man ... Judge resigns over rent-boy indiscretion … Clegg wants to overturn law that bans animals fornicating with Royal corgis … Punter wins hedging bets case – London Calling ... more

Election advice – ignore the War Party … Abe Saffron – libel terrorist … Rugby notes … Conniptions at Uni of Syd over Challis chair and law school merger … Evan Whitton at large ... more

Away from the oil-stained bilges of NSW politics and resting gently on Justinian’s couch the NSW Attorney General can be surprisingly mellow … A man who is both jovial and charming … Or was he speaking with an unpipped Kalamata olive in his mouth? ... more

Beguiling pastiche of barristerial posturing … The importance of looking the part … The Velvet Salamander transforms into the Silver Canetoad … James Hutton reviews Bullstrode Whitelocke’s essential text for advocates ... more

Effectiveness of incarceration … The Crime and Justice Reform Committee has been setting out the facts on rates of imprisonment … An interesting study in contrasts … Fairfax and Murdoch reptiles absorb different messages over Danny Gilbert’s delicious treats ... more

Obama administration gets its first Guantánamo conviction … Osama’s cook and bottle washer pleads guilty to “material support” ... David Hicks also pleaded guilty to this concocted “war crime” ... Our Man in Washington reports ... more

KPMG leads where most lawyers fear to tread … Working both sides of the street … Conflicts in the eye of the beholder … Redrawing the fine line on “independent” advice … Barry Lane reports ... more

Miles of shelf space liberated … Bold scheme to digitise first hundred volumes of the CLR … Open access for the uplift of humanity … Sponsors sought ... more

The inner-life of tipstaves … Souring of passions … Tippy seeks to comfort her wounded colleague with a strong dose of callousness … All the bowing and scraping takes a toll on the lass ... more

Pious Cant Esq in Tokyo reveals his ePersonality Disorder … Too much dopamine-squirting from internet and social media hyper-activity … Decreased empathy is the only way to survive in Big Law … Being detached and disconnected while simultaneously being plugged-in and connected ... more

Update ... Sir Terence O’Rort’s story bemoaning the failure to find a new Supreme Court judge for Queensland has produced results … David Boddice discovered to be the missing “Justice A” ... Hallelujah ... more

Turning back to the dark side on asylum seekers … Ramping up the rhetoric … Gillard unwilling to articulate a just policy … “Turn back the boats” is the chant that echos down the generations … Stephen Keim and Eve Lester comment ... more

Greg Curtin, member of the NSW bar council who last year agitated for silk selection reform, reviews the new process … A revised protocol supported by “conventions” should made the system more performance focussed ... more

From the Rewind Office … Justinian’s hard copy archive coughs-up snippets from 22 years ago … Laurence Gruzman’s fear of AIDS infected Qantas stewards … Ian Temby’s fearlessness … And the Australian Legal Convention – a bridge too far for Teddy Kennedy ... more

Goings On … Why Cowdrey had to go before the Labor government gets tossed out … Ruddock’s man goes to the bar … Cross pollinating the courts … Things go slow with Australian’s “forensic” investigation of Victorian coppers ... more

London calling … Disclosing electronic documents … Costs have travelled north in the wake of the Woolf reforms … Less willingness to order discovery … New gardening broom in Birmingham tries to keep the lid on the cost of disclosure … Leverhulme reports ... more

Great new book on the judge-lawyer bias … Tom Bingham’s tome should be binned … So too Ken Crispen’s … Lawyer Theodore Kubicek’s work is spot on … Not to mention Our Corrupt Legal System ... And Graham Perkin was wrong about everything that mattered … Whitton at large ... more

Most of the army of political reporters in Canberra have been asleep … Caught by surprise at the festering about Rudd within the caucus … Most press gallery hacks prefer to lecture their readers and the pollies, rather than shake down hot stories ... more

The US Supreme Court criminalises the advocacy of non-violent activity … First Amendment backflip … National security trumps free speech … Roger Fitch reports from Washington ... more

Judge Keating’s list of new workers comp arbitrators refined by AG … Well known hands get the gigs … Parliamentary flourishes out the window … Updated ... more

The study of law is rather like the study of theology … Waffly concepts abound – like “judicial independence” ... Tulkinghorn argues that law schools have about as much place in a modern university as schools of fencing or dancing ... more

Modifying Miranda ... Torture popping up everywhere … Medicos in the war crime frame … How the government switches the constitution on and off … Ballet dancing detainees could be swapped … Our Man in Washington reports ... more

Fresh crop of penguins graduate from bar practice course in Sydney … Early training to defend the untenable … Drinkers, gossipers, opiners, whippersnappers and obsessives released into the community … Our blogger Fledgling reports ... more

Mullettgate … Fontainebleaugate … The Australian’s case against Victoria’s chief copper Simon Overland … But there is a hole in the key allegation … A few more facts would help … In the meantime enjoy the relentless tub thumping ... more

Former Clayton Utz solicitor sues the firm for defamation … Email sent at the direction of former Law Soc prez Joe Catanzariti … Partners argue that proposed amended statement of claim “seriously prejudices them” ... Justice Simpson says firm’s submission is “inapt” ... more

Wine buff and barrister Gabriel Wendler interviews Francis Douglas QC about his family’s legal legacy, his love of the grape, and his short but decisive time as a Fiji appeal judge ... more

Jaws goes Mexican at the Paris end of Collins Street … Citizens queue for the elote, tacos, tostaditas and quesadilla at Mamasita ... more

Notes for the digestive system … Justinian’s wine man Gabriel Wendler interviews Francis Douglas QC about what he’s drinking and collecting … And Jaws visits the triumph that is Mamasita in Melbourne ... more

The aid flotilla attempting to breach the Israeli blockade is just the latest in the Gaza protest movement … Australian lawyers Ann Cunningham and Stephen Keim report on the Cairo protests earlier this year … US Embassy showed it has the muscle to halt violence by Egyptian security forces ... more

A capacity crowd at Gleebooks for the launch of Evan Whitton’s latest critique – Our Corrupt Legal System ... Feisty moment as “useless, gutless” attendees ravaged … Cheering supporters … JustyFlix got the shakes ... more

A little bit of Deja Vu ... Ex-Mallesons’ woman makes good … To celebrate the appointment of Bellevue Hill businesswoman Cheryl Bart to the board of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation we’ve dug up her telling session On the Couch ... more

Pious Cant, trapped at Big Law in Tokyo, examines frottage brought on by the excitement of high-end economic activity … Making obscene amounts of money increases the libidinous quotient … The BBC is to blame ... more

Theodora’s Goings On … French CJ on the science and politics of global warming (a.k.a. climate change) ... Effusion in the environmental jurisdiction … Coward’s Castle meets Grizzly Bear on the streets of Hobart ... more

Great distress as leaks spring from the Victorian bushfire royal commission … There are good leaks and bad leaks … Vicki Mole wrestles with the daily moral lapses that play havoc with lawyers’ “ethics” ... more

Rewind ... From Justinian’s hard copy archive … Justice Ian Callinan’s problems with his Latin exams … He wasn’t so crash hot at maths or political science either … Special court ruling to allow future High Court judge to become an articled clerk ... more

Our Man in Washington ... The cynical view is that Elena Kagan suits Prez Obama’s concepts of executive power … Latest thinking from the US Supremes on juvenile and sex offenders … Foreign detainees have no habeas rights … Assassination by drone and the law of war … Roger Fitch reports ... more

A legal profession regulated by layers not lawyers … Independence in tatters … Judges and trade union reps rise-up against proposed national reforms … The English legal system remains strangely unthreatened by non-lawyer regulators … Samantha Bowers reports ... more

Senior NSW Crown Prosecutor Mark Tedeschi’s latest photo exhibition opened earlier this month … Entrée Paris is a collection of his work shot in the City of Light … The show was opened by criminal defence lawyer Charles Waterstreet … At the time of the launch the shadow of the Des Campbell murder trial hung in the air ... A JustyFlix presentation ... more

Tippy delves into the soul of her colleagues and discovers a terrifying mix of ignorance, ambition and insecurity … It all blossoms during drinkies at the Leagues Club ... more

Injured workers seem to have multiple bites of the cherry until they stumble on the “right” opinion from a medical panel … Barry Lane’s eyes are watering as he contemplates the cost to the long suffering taxpayer … Time for some parliamentary penmanship ... more

Application of contemporary standards to use of the F%#*-word in public … Context is everything in coming to grips with indecent language … Justice Beach shows the way in Easter egg drama ... more

The tricky business of making doctors liable for their negligence, while exempting lawyers from liability for theirs … With the High Court on side, how can the lawyers lose? ... Tulkinghorn teases the issue … ... more

Portia attended the big chinwag in Melbourne on mediation and non-adversarial justice … She was singularly unimpressed … It put her in mind of a Billy Graham evangelical meeting … What’s happened to the old love for the godless adversarial joust? ... more

Leverhulme talks to Michael White, a lad from Brisbane who chanced his arm in London … Amid the fantastic challenges of his job he faced a crisis of his own … Despite the rewards, Queensland beckons ... more

Cross examination … Marvel at how Peter Blunden handles tight corners in Guthrie v News Ltd ... Norman O’Bryan on a roll … Tabloid temperaments flare … Tom Westbrook wades through the transcript ... more

Peter Blunden works behind Bruce Guthrie’s back to have him sacked as editor of the Herald Sun ... Whether putting news about Collingwood FC on page one sells more papers … Justice Kaye’s observations about Blunden … More from the trial transcript of Guthrie v News Ltd ... more

Guthrie v News Ltd. William Collins, Justinian’s veteran observer of Melbourne’s curial world, thinks Bruce Guthrie’s win against Harto and Blunders is on the margins of being a Pyrrhic one ... more

Trusts and estates guru … Academic, teacher and administrator … Prez of the Australian Law Reform Commission … Muso … Singer … All round triumph … Prof Rosalind Croucher is On the Couch ... more

Later aristo sons went to the bar … Now Hong Kong authorities crack down on poorer grade graduates wanting to be barristers … Right of audience for solicitors expanded … English structure on its last legs … Percy summons ghosts of halcyon days ... more

Confusion about proposed assault on crown prosecutors’ paypackets … Vic Supremes relent and cough-up excess payments … Pistilli v Atanaskovic shifts to the Court of Chancery … Move over Melbourne Cup – here come the solicitor sponsored Balcaldine goat races ... more

The Opposition is complaining about too much spending … However, it’s not so bad if the government over-spends on Liberal Party pals … Never has a satisfactory answer been given as to why Credit Suisse’s OzCar fee got bigger as the scheme got smaller … Another infamous email from party mole Godwin Grech … Samantha Bowers investigates ... more

CSR’s brush with Corporate Social Responsibility … Submissions about “commercial morality” frequently are a recipe for disaster … Professor Michael Adams* examines how and why CSR Ltd differs from James Hardie ... more

Outpouring of ennui at the return of Turnbull – freshly repackaged man of principle … Why do allegedly “moderate” Liberals sound so extreme? – The case of George (Soapie) Brandis … Quintet tunes-up … Attorney General’s big ticket budget items ... more

Matters of the heart and mind … Viscount Castlereagh showed Sin City how to get things done … Law and old rope … Plenty of options for Sir Joh’s kaolin … Effrontery aplenty ... more

A failed milk empire … When a Chinese mainland enterprise registered in The Caymans goes bust the Enterprise Bankruptcy Law is not much help to investors … Things looking better for creditors of Virgin Islands based Chinese businesses … Still, Honkers remains the pre-eminent financial centre in the region … Percy Lo-kit Chan reports ... more

Much ado … Roger Gyles QC says the silk consultation process is “superficial” ... Selection committee needs to be more rigorous … Some of the major shortcomings in the present system exposed, but by no means all … Bar ‘n’ grill ponders ... more

Terror trial dramas … The Omar Khadr case where the crimes are unknown to the law of war … Manipulating the Military Commission system … New rule that a law of war conviction doesn’t require a law of war violation … Pentagon bans four leading reporters from Guantánamo ... more

Thursday’s election is not about the issues the media insist are important … The real gripe is MPs rorting of expenses … A lot of punishment is to be meted out to those with snouts deepest in the trough … Leverhulme reports ... more

Kevin Rudd promised to restore the Racial Discrimination Act in the NT … There’s well placed thinking that the proposed legislation to reform the Howard government’s NT Emergency Response will do nothing of the sort … Slippery drafting … Another slight of hand from Kev? ... Samantha Bowers reports ... more

Few lawyers have as many fingers in as many pies as Melbourne solicitor Leon Zwier … He’s the high profile face of Arnold Block Leibler … Dealing with him is difficult … Somehow or other we got him On the Couch, where he tells us about his fears, regrets and obsessions ... more

There’s no end to the Michael Kirby story … Legal justice chases social justice … Love at first sight, despite the odd clothing ... more

Lawyers can’t write properly … Some can’t talk proper … Now it’s infecting the secretaries … Vicki Mole remembers the Plain English training she got as an articled clerk … It comes in handy ... more

Remember NSW Supreme Court Justice David Yeldham? ... The powers-that-be knew of his activities in the railway toilets of the underground, but looked the other way … The Police Royal Commission’s final report tracked the history of inaction by ICAC and the Judicial Commission … From Justinian’s hard copy archive ... more

Circuitous and artful influences are drawing Tippy towards life as a (professional) lawyer after time at the court is up … Nothing too upbeat … It’s all deliciously underhand ... more

Last week Vic CJ Marilyn Warren told a room of journalists that “judges don’t spin” ... Oh yes they do … Some of them not very cleverly … What Marilyn needs is proper spin training from Spiggsie Spigelman … Tulkinghorn investigates ... more

Roger Gyles QC is beavering away on his report about how to improve the way new silks are discovered in NSW … Are they born like that and naturally float to the top? ... Wild views are flushed out ... more

Leverhulme at the British elections … Round one to the Lib-Dem’s Clegg … The next debate will be most uncomfortable … Cracked souls who want to be PM … It was different when Winston ran the country from his bedroom ... more

New silks for Van Diemen’s land … Champers all around … Madge towelled by Chief Justice … How to scare kiddies into being nice to the wildlife ... more

How the law can be corrupted by a corrupt emperor … Silvio Berlusconi’s extraordinary struggle with the Italian justice system … Our Roman affairs correspondent reports ... more

Five years of preliminary skirmishing … The Australian National University’s battle with Aon Risk Services is still moving at a snail’s pace through the ACT Supremes, despite a blustery warning from the High Court eight months ago about “torpid languor” ... Samantha Bowers reports ... more

Stand-off between authors and publisher of the famed Law Handbook ... Global behemoth Thomson Reuters published 11th edition of consumer guide without the authors’ approval … Who has eaten the royalties? ... Tom Westbrook reports ... more

Documents discovered in litigation finding their way into the public gaze … Whatever happened to Harman v Home Department? ... Victorian WorkCover Authority off the document hook … Subpoenas to rain like confetti … Meanwhile, NSW legislates to tighten restrictions on use of court docs … Barry Lane reports from Melbourne ... more

David Hillard is one of the leading lights of the pro bono world … He led the charge to get big, fat corporate firms to notch-up a minimum of 35 hours of pro bono work per year for each lawyer … He was instrumental in Clayton Utz running the ultimately successful appeal in the Andrew Mallard case … He’s On the Couch trying to explain himself ... more

From Justinian’s hard copy archive … The day the property lads at Corrs met some rough trade in the bush at Helensburgh … Skirmish in the scrub ... more

Gerald Ford thought he’d elevated a trusty conservative when he appointed John Paul Stevens to the US Supreme Court … 34 years later Stevens leaves the court as one of its more committed liberal judges … In particular, his attitude to the death penalty underwent significant revision … Stephen Keim reports

Governments know how to pull the levers when it comes to news story manipulation … There’s a compliant media ready to be drip fed … Frequently it’s the Murdoch machine that is so obliging … Or is Procrustes just an old conspiracy theorist? ... more

Distractions for the AG at farewell court sitting … Kirby doco goes to air in June … Other lawyers get multi-part TV drama series … Finally, Stephen Archer off the roll … Other disturbances ... more

Life at Big Law in Japan has parallels with the chimera of the cherry blossoms … All very delicate … Awkward questions take hold in the middle of the night … You’ve arrived on Sugar Mountain, so why the thoughts of kamikaze? ... more

The artifice of the judicial tipstaff … Affirmations of brilliance keep the fantasy alive … But there is a dirty little secret … No wonder ‘staves get turned over each year ... more

Citizens United v Federal Election Commission could well make it onto the list of the worst judicial decisions ever made … Precedents turn slippery … The US Supremes open the tap on corporate election spending … Stephen Keim reports on how to get the best government money can buy ... more

Watching legislators pass the health “reform” was not a pretty sight … Easter recess appointments … Morality and legality of drone killings … Government going down like 10 pins in habeas cases ... more

William Collins is back from a stint at the Clarence Darrow Institute for the Furtherance of Robust and Respectful Advocacy at Podunk, New York … In a special bumper dispatch he gets to grips with Melbourne’s dazzling Dyson Hore-Lacy defo case … Sizeable all-up award of $709,380 plus indemnity costs … Ouch ... more

Leverhulme needs to take up the Treasury’s course on relaxation and de-stressing … Three former Labour ministers busted in lobbying sting – including proud little Aussie Pat Hewitt (Sir Len’s daughter) ... more

US Supreme Court to examine whether death row prisoners can apply for fresh analysis of biological evidence … Challenge to old jurisprudence … Stephen Keim reports ... more

Evan Whitton picks-up some literary pointers in Canberra … He sees Alice in Wonderland, which triggers thoughts of the legal profession … Rule against similar facts and the enriching qualities of anti-truth devices … Cartoon of the year … Sotomayor and Posner told to “wise-up” ... Sam Johnson would be appalled by the AIJA ... more

Judges’ associate Ginger Snatch trawls through transcripts of recent cases and judgments to harvest some moist snippets from the engine room of justice (tempered with mercy) ... more

The rule about priors … Legal indulgences … Recycling repeat offenders … Top Brit defence barristers rolling in public dosh … Why the concept of “wrongful acquittals” is frowned upon ... more

Junior Junior believes that his cases stand or fall depending who’s on the bench … It’s a difficult concept for clients to comprehend … If only the DNA of some of these beaks could be manipulated … A bit less grump … A bit more fairness ... more

Admitting foreign lawyers to the rich seam of Australian legal work … Indians, Pakistanis, etc still required to go the extra yards before they can hang out their shingle … Uniform rules now moderated by special discretions for the eminent … Secret memo from Justice Slattery … Tom Westbrook reports ... more

Those were the days … John Marsden’s meddling and running off at the mouth … Then there was the Botany scandal and ICAC dropping the ball … Contrary to Temby’s claim old aldermen do remember … From Justinian’s hard copy archive ... more

New Zealand jury acquits three who damaged spy base in anti-war protest … Claim of right upheld … Anarchy looms … Alex Mitchell reports from Aotearoa

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Codex 2 … Justinian’s crossword for followers of legal affairs … Partly cryptic … Partly not … Give the grey-matter a thrill … Print and play ... more

Steeped in the politics of the legal profession Glenn Ferguson has got to the top of the greasy pole … He’s sunny, fearless, optimistic, has no regrets and thinks Australia is great just the way it is … What more could you want in a President of the Law Council of Australia? ... more

Obituary … Peter Lyons fondly remembers one of Tasmania’s greats … Henry Edward Cosgrove … War vet, son of a premier, barrister and judge … He found a place to belong ... more

It’s so unfair … Junior Junior runs up against the self-represented litigant … The party with the barrister is the one to suffer ... more

Senior Chinese judge nabbed for corruption … Others in the pipeline … Shortage of suitable judges and resources sees the courts reeling under the weight of the PRC’s rapid economic expansion … Percy Lo-Kit Chan reports from Honkers ... more

The march of the Juris Doctor … Law schools find a cash cow with rebadged postgraduate qualification … What sort of people are becoming lawyers? ... Tom Westbrook investigates ... more

Life of a tiffstaff … Bright, ambitious and, when it comes to the crucial things, hopeless … Introducing Tippy, our new blogger filing from within the concrete cage at Queens Square ... more

Andrew Rawnsley’s book on the end of New Labour has everyone talking … Leverhulme extracts the choicest anecdotes ... more

Scalia puts one over on Kirbs … Past papers and the NSW bar exams … Smellograph mucks-up Tania Evers’ apology … Prof Allan’s misguided anti-charter rants … Bar frosty on Ball appointment ... more

Chang, Pistilli – former partners of Antagonistic Heartless – go down in fight about their share of late recorded billings … Too much distrust, too little courtesy ... more

Prez Obama’s “alternative” national security police is in ruins … John Yoo cocky after getting a clean bill of health from DoJ fixer … Clarence Thomas’ chambers a breeding ground for torture lawyers … Another Cheney chucking muck ... more

Food for lawyers … Jaws lets the adjectives fly as she grazes on Spice Temple’s 10-dish banquet … Not quite like the Cantonese restaurants littered through Australian country towns ... more

Defamatorium … The mother of all hellish defamation cases … Years in the making … Endless drama … Barristers birched for lack of computer skills … Samantha Bowers reports ... more

From Justinian’s hard copy archive … The NSW bar’s great struggles against John Basten and Wendy Bacon ... more

The Bill of Rights war … Proscrustes, zombie-like, fights back … More bunk from Prof Allan in Queensland … Unchecked executive power is having a lovely time in Australia … Whereas the Poms are applying restraints on over-the-top coppers and spooks ... more

A coven of overcompensating womyn disturbs Vicki’s life at the Firm … It must be catching … She now senses the smoldering development of her own sociopathic possibilities ... more

Melbourne silk Paul Scanlon in the frame, again … Victory at any price … Inappropriate closing address … Trial judge Jack Forrest also knuckle-rapped … VWA defending with no real case ... more

Property shocks … Godwin Grech takes interior design to an exciting new level … Coppers haven’t closed the book on Grech investigation … Drama in John Alexander’s steam room … Grouting horror … Too much French in Glenmore Road ... more

How many judges does it take to work out whether leave should be given for a workplace injury claim? ... Never enough … The Lotto barrel spins until “reasoning” is exhausted ... more

Adventures with Square, Esq … Introducing Pious Cant, blogging from his big law associate’s desk on a little island in Japan … He ventures into the presence of a partner whose mathematical rigidity is so severe that it brings on a bout of lap-dancing ... more

Security agencies die in a ditch over seven redacted paragraphs in Binyam Mohamed case … What was all the fuss about? ... Dishonest evidence from MI5 … Stephen Keim reports ... more

Another big firm commercial litigation solicitor tapped for the NSW Supreme Court … Due diligence completed … Announcement awaited ... more

A lot of fruity-sounding rhetoric accompanies “judicial independence” ... It’s really a trade union thing … French CJ, Bindi Irwin and The Mensch are among the most trusted Australians ... more

Update ... Victorian Supreme Court judges take legal advice on salary overpayments … Stand-off with the government … Nothing so simple as just paying back the money ... more

Sentencing of former Chatswood solicitor Christopher Fitzsimons … Manic gambler chomped through trust account money … Custodial policy for fraudulent solicitor with bi-polar disorder and alcohol dependence … Samantha Bowers reports ... more

Western Australia maintains its reputation for cocked-up prosecutions … The DPP defiant in the face of glaring oversights and errors … Flawed forensic approach not addressed … Tom Westbrook reports on the case of Patrick Waring ... more

Justinian remembers … Nicolas Cowdery’s famous blast about the inward-looking, mean-spirited and reactionary leadership of the legal profession … The Babette Smith affair, or how not to sack a CEO of the Bar ‘n’ Grill … Bad blood runs freely … All from our hard copy archive ... more

Capitalism is a beautiful thing … Rude citizens take an opportunity to poke out their tongues at Peter Jacobson and his Kookaburra decision … And CSR’s asbestos restructure attracts some scabby opponents ... more

Cross-cultural hobnobbing … Last day of the big American Bar conference in Sydney … Aspersions cast freely … No shortage of sponsored refreshments … Yarran Hominh reports ... more

Talk of Supreme Court reshuffle … Judicial appointments in chaos because of senate obstruction … Obama’s Nixonesque management style … Administration confirms it has authority to assassinate troublemakers at home and abroad … Confusion confounds terror trials ... more

Who said there was sexual repression in the British Isles? ... From footballers to politicians, they’re at it like stoats … Leverhulme visits Belfast and gets the lowdown on the “Swish Family Robinson” ... more

Judicial tolerance on display as Supreme Court explores the nickname “Ankles” ... Ray Chesterton v 2UE ... Old rugby league reporter savaged by John Laws … When friends fall out ... more

Evan Whitton at Soderbergh’s Tot Mom ... Master crims diddle the system … A few cards that War Minister Forkbender could play … Who runs America? ... And other conundrums ... more

What sort of judges do we really want? ... Michael Kirby and Nino Scalia get it on in the NSW Banco Court … Horns locked on application of “foreign” laws … Bills of Rights … Democracy … Reporter Yarran Hominh was there with his notebook ... more

Notes from the Red Mass … What is Spiggsie on about? ... Standing room only at Katzmann’s glittering swearing-in ... more

You didn’t need an ICAC inquiry to discover that the McGurk tape story was largely a pile of old cobblers … Here’s Justinian’s take on the tale from September last year … A cast of moth-eaten lags filled the blatts with desperado boasts of daring-do … All a delicious escape that signified nothing, at least not yet ... more

Incredibly awful address to the jury by defence counsel in a capital case does not move the US Supreme Court to lift a protective finger … Let death prevail … Stephen Keim reports ... more

We’re fortunate indeed to have enticed the indefatigable Norman O’Bryan AM SC onto the couch … The man who put the spanner in the works of VicBar’s chambers and clerking closed shop … He opens up about his fears, regrets and talents ... more

NT Supremes uphold prof misconduct findings against solicitor who made conflict of interest allegations against big Darwin law shop Cridlands and three of its lawyers … Buffalo Bruce reports ... more

Up pops Melbourne’s favourite Spanish noshery within striking distance of a clutch of legal stomachs … Jaws makes a bold claim that the paella is nestled deep in the soul of Melbournians ... more

Percy’s back with a shocking story of embezzlement in Honkers … Old judge looted by his errant son-in-law broker … You can’t choose your rellies ... more

Justinian introduces a crossword puzzle specifically designed for lawyers – partly cryptic, partly not … It’s composed by Stephen Clarke, who this month took out The Times of London’s clue setting challenge … Download and give the old brain a stretch ... more

Jackson inquiry in UK is the latest in an ageless line of reports into lawyers’ costs … Success fees out … Contingency fees in … What’s worse? ... more

Mary Macken, President of the NSW Law Society, linguist, weightlifter and lawyer for Sydney Buses, unburdens herself on Justinian’s couch … Disturbing personal obsessions revealed … French culture racing through her veins … Denial that other Mackens covet high office ... more

The Firm is a cerebral wasteland … Senior associate turns vegan … “Holistic” response not applicable to food decisions … Were lawyers always this way or did the law make them so? ... Vicki Mole rips ... more

Companies transmogrify into people as US Supreme Court strikes down laws limiting corporate funding of politicians … The deadline has come and gone but Guantánamo remains open for business … New evidence on detainee “suicides” ... The laws of war don’t apply to war ... more

The then Media Watch host and one of the country’s most magnificent silks gently birched in the High Court for not knowing the rules … Plucked from Justinian’s hardcopy archive ... more

Batty Tobacco thinks that a judge’s criticism of the “document retention” policy smacks of apprehended bias … Appeal judges divided on the thought process of the difficult to locate “fair minded lay observer” ... more

Solicitor not guilty of professional misconduct only unsatisfactory conduct … Penalty halved … Basten calls for proper judges to preside over tribunal hearings into lawyer misconduct … Court of Appeal to the rescue ... more

December saw some high profile defamation cases going the way of media defendants … There was a verdict for The Sydney Morning Herald in the Roco Roco restaurant review case … The same day The Australian won the war crimes case brought by Serbian paramilitary commander Captain Dragan … However, there was one case that month in which the media’s truth defence failed in the face of compelling cross-examination … Transcript

Struggle over legal fees paid by alleged drug dealers produces some intriguing arguments over who owns the loot … Sizzling retainer agreement in contention ... more

The Justice Department under Eric Holder is in crisis … Blackwater mercenaries immunised from prosecution for Iraqi shootings … DoJ holds to the Bush terror line … Roger Fitch reports on the latest cases stirring Washington ... more