Fresh horrors

NSW QCs - attorney general Smith speaks ... Big law shop getting into the law news and reporting business ... Soapy making mischief at the Human Rights Commission 

Hands-up for Her MajSO what now for the prospect of newly minted QCs in NSW? 

Following the massive display of hands-up for HM's gong in Victoria there is now a headwind of support blowing in NSW. 

Even SCs of republican sympathies are dazzled by the bauble. 

Lawyers Weekly reported that incorporation campaigner John Hyde Page is pressing for the reintroduction of Queens Counsel. 
 
Bar president Phillip Boulten dispatched a missive on February 6 to the rank and file saying that he was personally opposed to the QC option, but that the bar council "will need to give further consideration to this issue". 

Indeed, it is on the table for Thursday evening's gathering of the senior prefects (Feb 20). 

It is likely there will be a decision to consult the membership before taking the next step - namely, to press the government to amend s.90 of the Legal Profession Act, which, as it stands, outlaws official schemes for the recognition of barristers' seniority or status. 

So what does attorney general Greg Smith SC think of all this? 

His spokesmodel told us:

"Such a proposal is not under consideration. The attorney general has no plans to reintroduce the appointment of QCs in NSW." 

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News room at Sparke Helmore

LAW shop Sparke Helmore has come up with a bright-spark idea - to publish a law news web site. 

How will this fearless reporting be possible with the law shop so firmly clenched to the government's teat - including defending decisions of the lovely Department of Immigration?  

The firm has also done heaps of Royal Commission work for the Commonwealth, including the Iraq-Wheaties investigation and the Clarke inquiry into the Dr Haneef scandal. 

It seems an outfit called Content Plus has been involved in recruiting reporters for the project. 

Content Plus is run by a PR firm, Essential Media Communications, and it has been assisting Sparke Helmore find journalists of the right "cultural fit". 

The editor-in-chief will be Sparke's recent recruit, ex-Financial Review reporter Marcus Priest. 

"News" with a cultural fit. 

We can't wait. 

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Misleading announcement

ON Tuesday (Feb. 17) Soapy (Bookshelves) Brandis made an announcement that his favourite freedom warrior, Tim Wilson, had been appointed by the executive council to the position of Human Rights Commissioner at the Human Rights Commission.  

It sounds a bit confusing, but this has been an unfilled position at the HRC to which Wilson was appointed as a commissioner in December.  

The AG's announcement yesterday said: 

"Mr Wilson will discharge all of the functions of the Human Rights Commissioner, which is the second most senior position within the Australian Human Rights Commission." 

Just so he knows what he's supposed to do, Wilson was given some directions by Soapy to concentrate on civil liberties and "traditional rights and freedoms", such as freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of association. 

The announcement must have stunned the HRC commissioners, as there is no provision in the legislation for a hierarchy of commissioners.  

There is no second most senior position, much as the bumptious Wilson would like to run the show. 

The HRC president, Gillian Triggs, is the titular head of the operation and chairs the commission meetings - primus inter pares, and all that. 

There's no pecking order for the other commissioners.