Search
This area does not yet contain any content.
Justinian News

Potty Mouth Solicitor Dispatched ... NSW Court of Appeal takes dim view of solicitor who laced his correspondence with disrespectful insults ... Insufficiently professional ... Arrived from Greece with only his underpants ... No contrition ... Anthony Kanaan files ... Read more >>

Politics Media Law Society


The End Of The Affair ... Lord Moloch’s bid for more Fox News fans … The Wall Street Journal rallies the MAGA base …Will the old rogue abandon his journalists? … Is “bawdy” the right word here? … The Deep State plumbs the depths … John and Stanley Roth’s generosity to loving causes ... Read on >> 

Free Newsletter
Justinian Columnists

Suing for defamation - it's such a good idea ...Federal Court of Australia ... Sydney barrister loses bid for extension of time to bring appeal over decision allowing Giles George to intervene to seek an equitable lien over costs ... Falling out between barrister and firm after successful defamation action ... No error or procedural unfairness ... From Stephen Murray at the Gazette of Law & Journalism ... Read more >> 

Blow the whistle

 

News snips ...


Review of the operation of the FCFCA ... No suggestion that the courts should be subsumed by the Federal Court of Australia ... Instead, it's largely not understood that the FCFC consists of two separate courts ... "Unfortunate nicknames" ... Consideration of name change urged, along with further review of the federal law jurisdiction ... On it goes ... Report >>

Justinian's Bloggers

Postcard from London ... Summertime - And the living' is easy ... Votes for 16-year olds ... Paralegal's theft by pen ... Spy helping British intelligence from his job at Border Force ... Super-injunction comes out of the shadows ... Feed them strawberries and cream ... Floyd Alexander-Hunt files from Blighty ... Read more >> 

"I've stopped six wars in the last - I'm averaging about a war a month. But the last three were very close together. India and Pakistan, and a lot of them. Congo was just and Rwanda was just done, but you probably know I won't go into it very much, because I don't know the final numbers yet. I don't know. Numerous people were killed, and I was dealing with two countries that we get along with very well, very different countries from certain standpoints. They've been fighting for 500 years, intermittently, and we solved that war. You probably saw it just came out over the wire, so we solved it ..."

President Donald Trump at a meeting in Scotland with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer ... July 28, 2025 ... Read more flatulence ... 


Justinian Featurettes

Home Duties ... The dumping of Attorney General Mark Dreyfus ... Behind the scenes ... Bastardry among the brothers ... Unfinished business ... Family law, privacy ... Considerable policy and legislative results ... Here's Michelle Rowland as AG ... What are her priors? ... Polly Peck reports from the Gallery ... Read more >> 


Justinian's archive

Abolish silks ... Sydney SC writes to the editor calling for abolition of the silk system ... Appointments are anachronistic ... It's not a matter of ability, only notability ... Secret blackballing ... "Corrupt" process ... Confessions from an insider who played the game ... From Justinian's Archive, October 24, 2002 ... Read more >> 


 

 

« An 'A' for a lay | Main | Leave application rejected »
Monday
Oct282013

Brief encounter  

The interplay between barrister and solicitor ... Did Junior Junior's female friend at the bar get a big brief because the solicitor fancied her? ... Surely it's her legal skills that are in demand?  

The relationship between solicitor and barrister ranges from symmetry to fraught, with lots of permutations in between.

On its good days, barristers and solicitors delight in each others company and engage in mutual appreciation of their respective legal talents and knowledge, producing the perfect opera that is a winning case.

On bad days, the ship in Aliens looks an attractive place into which to move your chambers.

I am always intrigued to hear stories of the subtle interplay between barrister and solicitor.  

Many relationships have stood the test of time, unpaid fees and sexual indiscretions. 

Others are a misplaced birthday email away from implosion.

Recently a baby barrister friend told me a disturbing story ...

She was briefed to provide some advice and drafting on a big matter by a very nice solicitor. 

The brief would take quite a while and so the two struck up a friendship over emails and conferences.

The solicitor lived in a different city, but would visit the barrister when he was in town and they would have lunch.

The relationship developed and, to the baby barrister's distress, the solicitor started sending her little tokens of appreciation - flowers here and wine there, and on one occasion a gourmet hamper for her birthday.

The barrister was not interested in pursuing anything other than a professional relationship and was unsure how she should handle the solicitor's looming birthday. 

Should she ignore it, send a present, a card? Ultimately, she thought a modest birthday email would be friendly, but suitably reserved. 

Around the same time, the two of them chanced upon each other in the street. 

The barrister was with her fiancé and after an awkward introduction, the solicitor hurried off to a "meeting". 

Within a few days our baby barrister received an email from her solicitor in the big matter. 

Her services would no longer be required and to please return the brief.

She was shocked as well as a little relieved that the unwanted attention would be finally over. 

She popped the brief in the DX.  It was the last she heard from him.

For a baby barrister, the loss of a substantial brief is cause to lock oneself in a darkened room with several bottles of vodka and not surface for a week. 

I'm pleased to report that she remained surprisingly unfazed and simply caught up with her friends for a pow wow at Lindt.  

How very Sigourney Weaver of her. 

Junior Junior reporting

References (1)

References allow you to track sources for this article, as well as articles that were written in response to this article.
  • Response
    Brief encounter - Bloggers - Justinian: Australian legal magazine. News on lawyers and the law

Reader Comments

There are no comments for this journal entry. To create a new comment, use the form below.
Member Account Required
You must have a member account on this website in order to post comments. Log in to your account to enable posting.