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

Unread emails ... Family law barrister in Adelaide neglects to attend to emails ... Reminders to renew her ticket studiously ignored ... Unravelling chaos ... Trials invalidated ... Liability of Law Society and Conduct Commissioner ... Breach of statutory requirement ... Damages ... From our Team on the Torrens ... Read more >> 

Politics Media Law Society


An Australian Abroad ... An essay with pictures … Egypt and the Grand Museum … No end to the antiquities … Down the Nile on a dahabiya … Tombs and temples … Paris and industrial-scale tourism … The Yarts & Kulture ... Read on >> 

Free Newsletter
Justinian Columnists

Annihilation of the now ...Trump's campaign of destruction ... Fake emergencies ... Pointless and farcical executive orders ... Gangsterism ... Looting ... Corruption ... Shakedowns ... White rage ... Christian nationalism ... Roger Fitch unloads ... Read more >> 

Blow the whistle

 

News snips ...


Tasmanis's Lieutenant Guv (and CJ) Christopher Shenanigans is unlikely to decide the consitiutional impass ... The current guv'nor, former Circuit Court judge and family lawyer Barbara Baker returns to Guv House next week ... Labor hates the Greens and is unlikely to form a coalition government ... Another election looks likely as the numbers for both sides are brittle and unreliable ... However, Baker can ask the Labor leader to test his numbers. 

Justinian's Bloggers

Letter from London ... Weather report ... Starmer sinking ... Farage rising ... Fake law firm ... Fake cases ...  NHS employee cleans up with woke case for hurt feelings ... Floyd Alexander-Hunt files from Blighty ... Read more >> 

"In its self-image, Australia has changed from a nation of tough, resilient Anzacs to a snowflake society of victims. This can be seen in the rise of identity politics, cancel culture, trigger warnings, unconscious bias, workplace Broderickism, LGBTQIA+ pleading, colonisation impacts, hidden disabilities and welfare dependency. Hurt feelings, offensive words, micro-aggressions, workload stress and anxiety now form the basis of workers compensation claims."

Mark Latham MLC - a dissenting statement in a parliamentary report on proposed changes to workers compensation law ... May 2025 ... Read more flatulence ... 


Justinian Featurettes

Zeilgeist litigation ... Matt Collins KC on live-streaming of high-profile trials ... Social media nightmare ... Abuse of barristers ... Chilling emails ... Trials as a form of public entertainment ... Courts sleepwalking into a dangerous zone ... Framework needed to balance competing interests ... Paper delivered to Australian Lawyers Alliance Conference ... Read more >> 


Justinian's archive

Justice Jeff Shaw's bingle ... Supreme Court judge's drink-drive experience ... Cars damaged in narrow Sydney street ... Touch driving ... Missing blood sample ... Equality before the law may not apply to judges ... Judges behind the wheel ... From Justinian's Archive ... November 4, 2004 ... Read more >> 


 

 

« Avenging Sir Joh | Main | Sometimes it pays to be under-estimated »
Tuesday
Feb042014

January at the bar 

No cheques, no work, too poor to travel ... Junior Junior gets through January - preceded by a ghastly Christmas ... The myth of trying to be conspicuous during the break 

Christmas ... the start of the worst time of the year at the bar.  

I go into the end-of-year celebrations knowing that there will be no work and no money for the next month, at least. 

Despite this I still spend too much money on Christmas presents for relatives I don't particularly like. 

I sat down to a Coles-Woolworths manufactured, pre-packaged, northern hemisphere inspired Christmas lunch, drank too much and then fell into a food coma for the rest of the day.

Among many of the season's pointless traditions is the Christmas cracker. 

Each year, I buy the most expensive ones I can find after the disappointment of the previous year.

It seems that every year less explosive stuff is being used in these items and what was once a satisfying "pop" is now a bit of a "poof".

If you are unlucky lucky enough to win, you get to (a) put on a tissue-paper crown with the joy of having to wear it for the duration of lunch; (b) you get to read out the same "Dad" joke you had last year; (c) you are then saddled with trying to look excited about the miniature sticky-tape dispenser you won. 

I slept through the New Year's fireworks, because the idea of loading barges with millions of dollars, driving them to the middle of Sydney Harbour and setting the cash alight, didn't make me feel particularly celebratory.

Junior Junior suggests reallocation some of the fireworks funds to skint barristers

I couldn't help thinking that a distribution of some of that firecracker money to skint barristers, waiting for the cheque to come in, would have been a more worthwhile purpose. 

Then January arrives and I am stuck at home because chambers has decided to do renovations.

I watch midday television, obsessively check emails for any sign of work and pray that over the break clients have not forgotten I exist.

There is an urban legend that if a junior junior makes himself or herself conspicuously obvious for the whole of the December-January period that there will be a miraculous urgent injunction.

All the more senior barristers will be away so the junior junior will have the opportunity to wake a judge, run a flawless injunction and save the day.

This urban legend keeps many a junior junior waiting expectantly for weeks on end. 

There is always disappointment.

So, why is January at the bar like a Christmas cracker?

It is always approached with expectation and invariable there is more poof than pop. 

References (2)

References allow you to track sources for this article, as well as articles that were written in response to this article.
  • Response
    "few"
  • Response
    Response: menstration
    January at the bar - 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.