Pressing issues

Collapse of Street of Shame's chambers market ... LCA's mission statement for lawyers ... Chrissa Loukas overlooked for 60 Minutes ... Fairfax wipes Bantum of the Opera's costs ... Promotional franger ... What life was like in 1993 ... From Justinian's archive of stories 

Nest eggs ravished

Sad to report absolutely pathetic prices for Sydney barristers' chambers. There's been the most terrifying collapse in the market.

Consider this. A single room in Wentworth Chambers sold two years ago for $275,000. Now I see desperate barristers advertising their chambers for a mere fraction of this.

A one and one-third sized room on the 2nd at Selborne, fully kitted out with bookshelves etc, was being touted around recently at $125,000!

To give you some idea, a single room in Wentworth or Selborne is about 192 square feet in area (17.8 square metres).

In the good old days they were fetching $300,000 and about $500,000 for a double sized room.

Barristers are now bearing losses of hundreds of thousands of dollars with the collapse in the capital value of their rooms.

And many must be weeping when they see the new chambers in the Tattersalls Building being opened up with deals that are said to include a completely free fit out, 18 months rent free occupancy, a $100,000 contribution from the owner to the floor library and a spa bath tossed in.

So many have been pulling out of the old poke holes in Wentworth and Selborne that one must wonder how long it will be before chambers there are worth anything at all.

Justice O'Keefe still has his ghastly white wood double room on the 6th at Wentworth for sale at $600,000.

And my old friend R.J. Burbidge had his big room at Selborne on the market for three years before he finally surrendered for $160,000, hardly enough to get some tyres for his gleaming new, black Bentley. 

Missionary position 

A marvellous retreat at Lilianfels in the Blue Mountains for the inner sanctum of the Law Council of Australia at the end of July.

There were long healthy walks in the crisp air, there was concern about how much of the discussion would leak out, and there was quite a bit of lively banter about image, relevance and future - topics which have been discussed at Law Council meetings since time began.

Prior to the meeting there was caucusing between the NSW and Queensland Law Societies. They were keen for their agendas to be at the centre of the weekend focus.

However, the truly important thing to come out of the gathering was the mission statement to raise the image of lawyers, and it should be quoted here and now, and tattooed on our foreheads:

"Lawyers should pro-actively adopt feel good, high profile human causes." 

Goddess offers herself  

The people at Channel 9's 60 Minutes were intrigued to receive a letter and accompanying photo of gorgeous Sydney Greek barrister Chrissa Loukas.

Jennifer Byrne was leaving the program to join the ABC and here was Chrissa applying to fill the vacancy as a reporter on the top rating tabloid current affairs show.

She told the producers that journalists and barristers both have advocacy skills, so why not try a barrister as a reporter?

Executives at 60 Minutes were faced with a terrible dilemma, because deep down I feel sure they would have been desperate for Chrissa.

In particular the enticing Madonna-like photo of the famous advocate would have been a powerful incentive.

But, as we know, Tracey Curro was chosen, a decision for which quite a number of lawyers have been quite thankful. 

Hatred Ridicule & Contempt 

Bantum of the Opera: War games with Conrad BlackReaders will join with me in agreeing that one of the most admired and attractive NSW cabinet ministers would have to be Treasurer and Bantam of the Opera, Lt. Cmdr. Peter Collins MP, QC, RANR.

The Bantam was a plaintiff in a disastrous defamation trial last year. He sued a doctor in the Health Department who wrote a letter published in The Illawarra Mercury.

Illawarra Newspaper Holding Pty Ltd and John Fairfax & Sons Ltd were joint publishers of the Mercury at the time and along with the doctor they were defendants in this action.

The minister claimed that imputations arose from the publication that he was completely lacking in moral integrity and that he is a despicable politician.

He lost the case and had costs awarded against him for all but one of the 14 days of the trial.

The costs all up must have reached fairly plump proportions (i.e. around $400,000) because there were two defence teams, one representing the good doctor and one for Fairfax and Illawarra.

An appeal was on foot, with two days set aside for argument. On July 29 it was announced that a settlement has been achieved and the Bantam would be withdrawing the appeal.

The basis of this deal is that for reasons best known to the executives at Fairfax they are going to let the cabinet minister off paying the vast proportion of their costs.

The Bantam had written to Fairfax asking for the kindest consideration to be given to wiping the slate clean and forgiving him the payment.

As a result of these overtures Collins will only be required to pay a token proportion of the Fairfax/Illawarra legal bill.

This is a novel way for a significant newspaper group to discourage ludicrous defamation actions from over-sensitive politicians. Maybe the outside shareholders will be interested to know this is the way their company is managed.

I'm told that the Lt. Cmdr. and my old friend Conrad Black, the creepy Canadian mogul, have jointly and together played war games together and have a thorough understanding of each other.

My advisers also tell me that the Bantam has negotiated a similar deal with the Health Department, since it paid for the doctor's defence of this beastly action. 

Promotional franger 

Councillors at the NSW Law Society were incredulous. They were sitting at a meeting in their Phillip Street eyrie when suddenly, nudge-nudge, around the table is passed a condom.

The word "Marsdens" is printed on the wrapper.

Say no more.