The short goodbye

A flair for servitude ... Don't tell the incoming 'staves too much, or too little ... Yesterday's tipstaff smells the freedom - coffee made by someone else ... Tippy's emotional farewell

Tinsel in the Law Courts library can mean but one thing: it's time for the tippy circus to pack up its tent and roll on to one of the Big Six (Minutes).

Leather tomes and silver tea sets have been given a final buff by now work-calloused hands, trolleys taken for a parting spin, the David Jones foodhall trawled for the last time for lunchtime treats to tempt the discerning judicial palate.

Gus has been humming "Time to Say Goodbye" in the chambers corridor for weeks, in a tone savouring more of triumph than of sorrow.

On quiet afternoons, Emma and I perform an après-court dance routine in our frock coats as Gus hums melodiously. Tea towels are used as rhythmic gymnasts use ribbons, and trolleys are pushed in fluid unison as only experienced hands can manoeuvre them.

It is a fittingly solemn end to a year in selfless judicial service.

The Associates might profess to be appalled - mutterings of "puerile" may have been heard - but I am convinced I saw one or two blink away tears of quiet pride on their way to the kitchen.

"The thing about goodbyes," Gus says, slouching across two cushioned chairs outside chambers, "is that the longer and more effusive they are, the less the participants like each other. I hope the Judicial Send-Off will be succinct."

Emma and I try in vain to work a small jump and twirl into our dance routine to symbolise the more theatrical element at the bar. (A curled foetal position conveys the moments of cranium-crushing boredom, inspired by less agile advocates and the Tippy Christmas party).

"It's like those sentimental, reply-all tippy emails that have started doing the rounds," Emma says, holding the small of her back and wincing pain after a poorly executed twist. "It's too late to be striking up friendships and seeking contact details now.

"If you haven't already Facebook-stalked your chambers neighbours, extracted their mobile number and texted them a panicked plea to prepare the morning coffee in your absence, groped them in the Rare Book Room or compared judicial peccadilloes at the Leagues Club, the SS Friendship has chuffed off."

Gus raises a dignified eyebrow. "It was only the one time in the Rare Book Room," he says. "And we had to leave because my Federal Court friend was, as it transpired, very dust-sensitive."

"Speaking of the F-word," Emma continues, "my tippy successor tried to add me on Facebook yesterday, the cheeky so-and-so."

The last few months have seen a trickle of proto-'staves appearing in chambers, soft young hands untouched by harsh dishwashing liquid, their puny biceps unused to lugging bags of delicacies and reams of paper, faces aglow with graduand enthusiasm and ignorance of the College of Law horror that awaits.

It is the incumbents' responsibility to train these children - upstarts who applied for our jobs months ago, before our cheap office chairs had moulded snugly to our buttocks - in the curious ways of the courts world.

"The thing is, though," Gus told his shy, notebook-toting successor only half in jest, "you've either got a flair for servitude, or you don't."

In truth, it is a very fine line between telling too much and too little. School your successor too thoroughly in the art of the 'staff and you will be outshone from the outset: no, they must be left to flounder with the finer points of ceremonial chair-pushing and wand-waving.

Tell them too little, however, and it reflects poorly on your own abilities. For my own part, I have told The Younger Model most things, along with a couple of delicious red herrings that should make for some dinner-time mirth for Judge and family.

Still, there is nothing too amusing about being traded in for Tippy 2.0 at 23 years and seven months. Is this what a quarter-life crisis feels like?

"You're not having a crisis," Gus says on our final day. "You just thrive on drama, you blog-happy, navel-gazing infant. Wake up."

There will be no effusive goodbyes between Gus and I, nor any need for goodbyes at all. I suspect we will always be on hand to give the other a hearty, tough-love slap in the face, even if he is off on his Gap Year odyssey.

He reminds me that the Judicial Gift is an estimation of one's worth. A notepad with ponies on it says you're a bimbo. "I think you're a diary woman, personally. One with a lock on it."

Gus was given a weighty legal volume, a purchase I suspect was equal parts wishful thinking and confidence in his considerable, albeit untamed, abilities.

As it turned out, after registry staff were bidden farewell, library books, keys and coat returned, desk cleaned, coffee cups washed, Plastic Man mocked for the last time (at the courts) and Associates hugged in a fit of last-day exuberance, my judge gave me the same tome.

There was an awkward pause, a shy exchange of thanks and a goodbye, before I caught my foot in the frayed rug for the last time.

Stripped of my scintilla of power, I shuffle out past the law courts security guards and down the steps to Phillip Street - Yesterday's Tipstaff: a frictionally unemployed graduate amid palm trees.

"Smell that?" yells Gus, balancing a box of junk on his hip across the road. He takes a theatrically deep breath outside Society cafe.

"That's what freedom smells like," he says, as I snuff the air. "Coffee made by someone else."