Beware of barristers bearing free rooms

Uproar in Martin Place as a third of 15 Wardell peels off  ... ACCC wants to know more about clerks for Vic barristers ... French CJ, the lady in green and Grecian 2000 on display at the Art Gallery of NSW ... Theodora reports

The atmosphere is prickly at 15 Wardell Chambers following publication of an item in the bar's newsletter about the availability of rooms at the Martin Place address.

The announcement said that rooms were to become available at 15 Wardell and they would be offered "free of charge", with an attractively low rent and the prospect of a 10 year lease.

"No payment is required." Maybe a set of steak knives might be thrown for any of the fortunates who put their hands up for this never-to-be-repeated offer.

The advertisement appeared because at least 10 members of the chambers want to create a new set on level 8 of the same building.

In all, about a third of the entire chambers is moving to sleek, new, modern rooms with lots of glass and maybe even blond timber trimmings - after the expiry of the current lease on level 15 at the end of next July.

Evatt: fingeredSome of the remaining two-thirds are concerned that the lease will not be renewed unless new members are signed-up. The alternative is that the stayers will have to find new stamping grounds from which to ply their dark trade.

Clive Evatt was fingered as the person "behind" the advertisement. There was mounting concern from barristers distressed at the suggestion that their rooms were worth absolutely nothing and that they would leave their colleagues in the lurch.

When word that an advertisement was to be placed with In Brief, one member of the floor, Andrew McSpedden, asked the board of 15 Wardell to intervene and stop it going ahead.

When his request was ignored, he said he would speak to chief bar manager Philip Selth and tell him that the ad was full of fibs and was "unauthorised".

George Lucarelli told McSpedden not to intervene and to let the board handle the situation.

McSpedden insisted that he was entitled to get Selth to do something as his interests were affected by the "free of charge" inducement.

Selth advised that in future he would check with the directors of the floor before any future missives were published by In Brief.

Wardell Chambers: 39 Martin PlaceIn the meantime, barristers overflowing from gilded halls, such at Wentworth and Selborne, idly pondered whether it was possible to fill some of the rooms at 15 Wardell, but still call themselves Wentworth/Selborne.

No - that couldn't work, surely.

Here is the naughty announcement in full:

"Rooms are to become vacant in Wardell Chambers (Level 15, 39 Martin Place). The rooms are beautifully made with book cases, cupboards, carpets and all fittings. Many of the rooms are large in size. Some face north over Martin Place and others west overlooking the courtyard of the MLC building. The rooms are to be offered free of charge. No payment is required. The rent is attractively low. There is to be a 10 year lease. This rare opportunity has arisen because a number of the present floor members are leaving their rooms vacant in order to start new chambers.

Level 15 Wardell is a long standing floor with a competent clerk and staff.

The board is looking to attract forward thinking applicants. All applications to the clerk will be treated in confidence."

Those departing are:

• Elaine Brus
• Martin Claridge
• Dennis Epstein
• Julian Gormly
• Geoffrey Johnson
• Paul Jones
• Andrew McSpedden
• Bill Nicholson
• Richard Page
• Chandra Sandrasegara

Clive Evatt has told intimates that there is too much to pack-up in his chambers and he will not be leaving. If need be he'll sit there alone and pay the rent for the entire floor.

*   *   *

Word on the Rialto is that Graeme Samuel and the plod at the ACCC have been invited to poke their noses into the clerking arrangements of the Victorian bar.

The issue concerns the exclusion of some clerks from full rights to trade on a footing equal with the specially anointed.

VicBar calibrates its clerks by hashtags, asterixes, or blanks.

The hashtags are "licensed and approved clerks" - approved by the bar council because they work mainly for barristers who are sheltered by Barristers Chambers Ltd.

Those with an asterix are approved, but are not licensed to receive trust money. Funnily enough there is only one clerk in this category, Terry Hawker from Barristers Logistics, and he operates out of the non-BCL rooms, Melbourne Chambers.

Then there is Belinda Lyus from Sydney, who clerks for List Q and can't get a hashtag or an asterix - just a blank. She is barely tolerated on VicBar's website.

It is the system of stratification and how it is decided and by whom that is so transfixing.

While it is at it the ACCC might also look at the Queensland bar, where clerking hasn't taken off at all and is discouraged by the authorities.

What sort of restraint of trade is that?

*   *   *

Last week's Law Society of NSW annual dinner was a humdinger, held under the watchful eye of the great daubings at the Art Gallery of NSW.

CJ French was the star attraction, and he sent a decided chill into the air when he told a story about his brother-in-law, who came from Sydney, and was on the fringes of The Push, but took a job in Perth.

Everyone was horrified. How could he go to Perth when he had been offered a job in Sydney?

He replied: "One small town is much like another."

Ouch. Much sucking in of air.

Soapy Brandis snapped talking to reptiles at Law Soc dinsIn fact, that was the title of his speech "One Small Town" and he dwelt on the on how quaint it is that lawyers think of themselves as members of a profession in tiny fiefdoms like NSW, or WA or the NT, and so on.

But the cruncher was time costing. French recalled NSW governor Sir George Gipps' remark, in the 1840s, about the colony's solicitors, who were ... 

"causing delays in the administration of justice, increasing expense in legal proceedings and claiming excessive remuneration for services."

All of which, the CJ added, is "still with us".

He made no bones about saying that doing something about this is the responsibility of professional outfits, such as the Law Society.

French remembered when timesheets were introduced into his WA law shop in the 1970s:

"The beguiling voice of our accountant said - 'this is just a management tool'. It is generally recognised that time costing has gone far beyond the status of a management tool.

It is seen in some quarters as an encumbrance upon professionalism, which places a premium on inefficiency."

French: lustrous locksThroughout all this a lady is a sparkling green dress was becoming increasingly visible and agitated.

By the time the annual awards for best and oldest solicitors were being doled out the sparkly green lady was slurring loudly and incoherently. She climbed to her pins most unsteadily and tried to navigate around the room, before she was gently ushered to safety, in the chill air outside.

One thing that lingered in the minds of guests was the pressing question, "does Chief Justice French dye his hair"?

Without having examined every follicle I can safely pronounce that for a 63-year old man his locks are bewilderingly unaffected by the advancing years.