Biography underway for lion of the bar

Tom Hughes to be profiled in detail and at length in new book by Canberra historian ... Keddies still ducking and weaving - application for judge to step aside ... Barristers ordered to reveal their billing in Hong Kong PI cases ... Smallbone boned by bar 'n' grill ... Ashton v Pratt - Madison flirts with an appeal 

Canberra historian Ian Hancock is to write a biography of the lion of the Sydney bar 'n' grill, Tom Hughes. 

Hancock specialises in the life and times of aging Liberals. He's done Jolly John Gorton and is nearing completion of a work about one-time NSW Liberal Premier Nick Greiner, which is scheduled for publication later this year. 

He's also author of a book on the NSW Liberal Party - called, surprisingly enough, The Liberals. 

Haylen: always ready with a willing jibeHughes was a captain in the RAF during WW11, attorney general in the Gorton government, and for nine years Liberal member for the federal seat of Parkes. 

Les Haylen, who previously held the seat for the ALP, referred to Hughes as "Packer's pea in Parkes".  

Hughes, who turns 89 this year, is also an active beef farmer, with two properties in the Goulburn-Crookwell area. 

Brother of Robert Hughes, the celebrated art critic and author, father of Lucy, a former Lord Mayor of Sydney, he is also father-in-law of Malcolm Turnbull, former Liberal Party leader, cabinet minister, pointy-end deal-maker, Republican campaigner, investment banker, lawyer, journalist, and man of fabulous wealth. 

Tom Hughes was once approached at a high end Sydney social gathering by one of the more oafish members of the hacking tribe, and asked: "How's the bar going?"  

"A bit patchy," came Frosty's retort, "but not at my level". 

Ian Hancock has a lot on which to chew. 

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Contempt proceedings against the Keddies Three (Russell Keddie, Scott Roulstone and Tony Barakat) are supposed to kick-off next Friday (Feb. 3) before Justice Michael Adams in the NSW Supremes. 

However, the Keddies boys have dreamed-up a new twist and applied for Adams to remove himself on the ground of apprehended bias. 

The application relates to two lots of proceedings - the main action in which solicitor Stephen Firth is suing Keddies for attempting to divert his clients and interfere with overcharging litigation and separate contempt proceedings in which it is alleged that court orders were breached. 

Keddies: protestThe application was supposed was be decided on the papers, but no one has heard anything yet. 

Frankly, there is no reason at all for Adams to step aside. The old bear of a judge has been a model of restraint in the face of some heavy provocation from Chris Branson for the Keddieites. 

At one stage in the tireless rigamarole, when Branson was really up on his hind legs, Adams called for court officers, who lumbered in and hung about until things simmered down. 

Adams has expressed his disapproval at the reluctance of Barakat, Keddie and Roulstone as "officers of the court" to provide an explanation of their conduct in arranging settlements with former clients they had been ordered not to approach.

Adams noted that, up until this case, he had believed …

"the ordinary tenets of professional courtesy would extend to the voluntary proffering of an explanation for their conduct ... quite apart from more formal proceedings against them ...

I would like to put on record my grave disapproval that [the Keddies partners], particularly Mr Roulstone." 

The evidence to hand is that Roulstone signed a cheque payable to a former disgruntled client to settle an overcharging/breach of contract case against him and his partners. 

Earlier Adams had made orders that sought to prevent Keddies or its agents communicating with former clients who were suing them in the District Court. 

Meanwhile, District Court judge Susan Gibb made orders for barristers Tim Meakes and David Campbell SC to produce bills they had rendered to Keddies in Hong Kong personal injury cases. 

This is part of one of the overcharging cases that Firth is running. 

Meeks and Campbell will be in the Court of Appeal on Tuesday challenging this order, and in the interim still haven't produced their records of accounts. 

See recent coverage

Keddies must be kidding 

Grave disapproval of Keddies 

Order to Keddies to show cause  

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Smallbone: elected on a protest ticketTwo months ago Sydney barrister David Smallbone succeeded in the Federal Court in delaying the Bar Association's decision about his application for silk. 

He's now had news that he was turned down. 

Last October the bar was ordered to give Smallbone partial access to information it had collected as part of the silk decision-making rigmarole.  

He also won a stay so that the bar would not in the interim make any adverse decision about his application.  

Smallbone was given time to examine the comments made by people polled by the selectors. 

Subsequently, the rank and file elected Smallbone to the bar council, a move that was seen as a protest about the opaque way in which smoke emerges from the Holy See in Phillip Street. 

However, last month the chief barman relayed the unhappy news to Smallbone that after all the tooing and froing his application had been nixed. 

It is understood that Smallbone was the only candidate in the last round to have been afforded an interview with the high priests and priestesses of the selection panel. 

Of course, there is always room for another trip to the Federal Court. 

The bar said it had "no comment" to make

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I hear that Guy Reynolds SC is pouring over Justice Paul Brereton's judgment in Ashton v Pratt with a view to seeing whether the distressed damsel can take the matter any further.