The bar at war with itself

The tortured path to the Bar's adoption of direct professional access was littered with drama and betrayal ... It's the early 1990s and the NSW Bar was being dragged into the twentieth century ... Fusion, co-advocacy and access to barristers all in the melting pot as the government hatches the Legal Profession Reform Act ... Spin doctors and melting faxes all part of the furious battle to resist change 

Click to read more ...

Vintage Lionel Murphy

On June 29, 1979 Justice Lionel Murphy delivered a rip-roaring speech in Adelaide to the first national conference of Labor lawyers ... Murphy at that time had been on the High Court for four years and was its fifth most senior judge ... Here he made his most revealing public statement since leaving politics ... The role of judges ... Tax avoidance and the courts ... Doctrine of precedent ... The need for judges to change the common law boldly 

Click to read more ...

Melbourne barristers off the hook

It's 1981 and the NSW bar's ethics committee has dismissed suggestions from Athol Moffitt that two Melbourne barristers weren't plying their trade in accordance with the high standards of the Sydney bar ... Suggestions that the trial was protracted by irrelevancies and the use of extreme language - thrown out by the ethics inspectors ... Crushing blow for Court of Criminal Appeal ... From Justinian's Déjà Vu department 

Click to read more ...

The man who replaced Barwick

It's early 1981 and the government has announced that Sir Harry Gibbs will replace Sir Garfield Barwick as chief justice of the High Court ... While Queenslanders might be familiar with Gibbs, few others knew much about him ... In March 1981 Justinian filled-in some of the gaps and made some fearless predictions ... From our Déjà Vu department  

Click to read more ...

Major moments in the Murphy case

For a large chunk of the time Lionel Murphy was a High Court judge (February 1975 to October 1986) he was hanging out with magistrates and District Court judges ... Morgan Ryan case of pressing importance ... "Now what about my little mate?" ... From Justinian's Déjà Vu department ... March 1985  

Click to read more ...

Frying Bacon

Journalist Wendy Bacon faced enormous pressure after she had the temerity to reveal Clarrie Briese's allegations against High Court justice Lionel Murphy ... Briese's evidence to a Senate committee was supposed to be a secret ... DPP Ian Temby also in strife with the Labor maaates ... From Justinian's archive ... September 1985 

Click to read more ...

Struggling with the modern world

Roderick Pitt Meagher has taken over the leadership of the NSW bar at a crucial time in its history ... Here Justinian gets up close to the man at the helm ... "Idiots" at the Law Reform Commission trying to meddle in bar's affairs ... Finding it hard to escape the Dark Ages ... Meagher's first ever interview ... Justinian, February 1980 

Click to read more ...

Temby and police indemnities

Ian Temby in row over indemnities for police who illegally tapped phones ... From Justinian, April 1985

Click to read more ...

The Botany Boys

The Botany Council bribery case ... ICAC less fun in Ian Temby's day ... Earlier Labor scandals in NSW ... Rezoning of Murdoch land  ... Memories far from faded ... From Justinian's archive, February 1990

Click to read more ...