Killing the goose

Law term opens to thunderbolts from prelates ... Feasting and banqueting ... Great orations in honour of the future and the status quo ... Here come the Indians ... Theodora retreats to the safety of home and televised procedures for the removal of haemorrhoids

The ceremonies to mark the opening of law term hum to a time-worn rhythm.

A gruesome Red Mass, in blazing temperatures, with all the big wigs weighed down by their exquisite finery, trapped in the confines of George Pell's doomsday machine.

This year everyone was ear bashed by Bishop Anthony Fisher on the evils of euthanasia.

The Bishop didn't much like parliament meddling in the will of god:

"Even were such a proposal to gain a parliamentary majority this would not make it right.

Bad laws are mostly made by bad people and in turn make people bad."

From Simon Fieldhouse

Lawyers should rise-up and smite these laws whenever ungodly wretches like the Greens try to introduce them.

Back into the heat, the judges in their red wool and rabbit fur looked as though they were about to dissolve into little slicks of trans fats.

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The dining room at Parliament House in Macquarie Street is a gaggle of politicians, judges, archbishops, public servants, reptiles of the press and lesser worthies, packed together to silently graze while spellbound by the annual Spigelman Lecture.

So famous have these panegyrics become that they have been collected into a bound volume called Opening of Law Term by Chief Justice The Hon James Spigelman.

This year Spiggs was on about the need for lawyers to become more globally engaged. Acronyms filled the still air: ILSAC, ACICA, APRAG, USAFTA.

Most people glazed over and only stopped picking the remnants of the prawn salad out of their teeth when the CJ veered off to issue his pet warning about costs.

"One of the themes that I have mentioned in many of these opening of law term addresses has been the need to control the cost of provision of legal services.

I have indicated, probably more frequently than any of you wanted to hear, that the legal profession in Australia is in danger of killing the goose.

I warned personal injury lawyers about this before the Civil Liability Acts and the abolition of the Workers Compensation Court. I have warned commercial lawyers more than once.

There is no area of commercial life that has not been subject to significant change with a view to minimising the cost of inputs.

The law will not be insulated from such changes."

Spigelman CJ: issued his annual costs warningSpiggsy went on to observe that for any significant commercial dispute "the flagfall for the discovery process was something of the order of $2 million".  

He urged law firms to adopt the American practice of using Indian outsourcing centres, where the hourly billing rates are one-tenth that of the USA.

One of the most successful web based legal services providers is Pangea3, which has been gobbled up by Thomson Reuters.

Rio Tinto has moved part of its contract writing and review team from London to New Delhi, where an outsourcing company does high end work.

Spiggs said Australian lawyers better get with it.

"Indian lawyers will come to constitute online competition for all commercial lawyers, not just for the major law firms. Just as outsourcing has changed many other spheres of commerce, legal outsourcing will change the way law is practiced."

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The new President of the NSW Law and Order Society, Stuart Westgarth, with neatly parted hair and freshly pressed pin stripes, put in a strong pitch for the status quo.

In his dinner speech he was sceptical as to whether the national legal profession reform project is heading in the right direction:  

• Claims that it will save costs of regulation and compliance need to be critically analysed.

• Uniformity alone is "not necessarily a desirable goal". It would be ridiculous to trade away a "tolerable" state-based system for an "unacceptable uniform national system".

• Provisions in the draft regulations "may tip the balance" too much in favour of consumers and "make it unreasonably difficult for the lawyer".

• Lawyers face the prospect of having too few protective mechanisms, while the client has many.

• Criticism of time billing is often "unpersuasive", because it ignores the fact "that the great majority of solicitors understand the responsibility to charge an amount which is fair and reasonable". Sophisticated clients also want hourly billing. Nonetheless, the Law Society will "participate in a review concerning billing practices".

• Dilution of the role of the Law Society under the national scheme is "not healthy for the profession or for our system of justice".

Happily, the Law Society will play a role as a "thought leader", which involves putting forward views on the legal system and the profession that are "evidence based and balanced".

Four ageing troopers from Westgarth's days at Corrs were among those who looked on in admiration: Andrew Stevenson, Henry Herron, Rod McGeoch and John Kehoe.

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With more of the same buzzing in my ears I retreated home, just in time for Channel Nine's Embarrassing Bodies - a fascinating medical program with up-close camera work dealing with exciting surgical procedures for the removal of piles, as well as a cure for a woman whose feet sweated so badly that her shoes rotted.

If only I had learned earlier about these marvellous treatments.