Unlocking the archive

Miles of shelf space liberated … Bold scheme to digitise first hundred volumes of the CLR … Open access for the uplift of humanity … Sponsors sought

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I feel the need, the need for speed

Pious Cant Esq in Tokyo reveals his ePersonality Disorder … Too much dopamine-squirting from internet and social media hyper-activity … Decreased empathy is the only way to survive in Big Law … Being detached and disconnected while simultaneously being plugged-in and connected

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Situation vacant

Update ... Sir Terence O’Rort’s story bemoaning the failure to find a new Supreme Court judge for Queensland has produced results … David Boddice discovered to be the missing “Justice A” ... Hallelujah

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Let me count the ways

Turning back to the dark side on asylum seekers … Ramping up the rhetoric … Gillard unwilling to articulate a just policy … “Turn back the boats” is the chant that echos down the generations … Stephen Keim and Eve Lester comment

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Keeping the bastards honest

Greg Curtin, member of the NSW bar council who last year agitated for silk selection reform, reviews the new process … A revised protocol supported by “conventions” should made the system more performance focussed

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Avoiding the discovery train wreck

London calling … Disclosing electronic documents … Costs have travelled north in the wake of the Woolf reforms … Less willingness to order discovery … New gardening broom in Birmingham tries to keep the lid on the cost of disclosure … Leverhulme reports

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Out to lunch

Most of the army of political reporters in Canberra have been asleep … Caught by surprise at the festering about Rudd within the caucus … Most press gallery hacks prefer to lecture their readers and the pollies, rather than shake down hot stories

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The beak as perverter

Great new book on the judge-lawyer bias … Tom Bingham’s tome should be binned … So too Ken Crispen’s … Lawyer Theodore Kubicek’s work is spot on … Not to mention Our Corrupt Legal System ... And Graham Perkin was wrong about everything that mattered … Whitton at large

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Material support

The US Supreme Court criminalises the advocacy of non-violent activity … First Amendment backflip … National security trumps free speech … Roger Fitch reports from Washington

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Up the workers

Judge Keating’s list of new workers comp arbitrators refined by AG … Well known hands get the gigs … Parliamentary flourishes out the window

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The pretenders

Fresh crop of penguins graduate from bar practice course in Sydney … Early training to defend the untenable … Drinkers, gossipers, opiners, whippersnappers and obsessives released into the community … Our blogger Fledgling reports

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Supreme Court wonderland

Modifying Miranda ... Torture popping up everywhere ... Medicos in the war crime frame ... How the government switches the constitution on and off ... Ballet dancing detainees could be swapped ... Our Man in Washington reports

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Seeing the emperor's new clothes

The study of law is rather like the study of theology … Waffly concepts abound – like “judicial independence” ... Tulkinghorn argues that law schools have about as much place in a modern university as schools of fencing or dancing

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Oz v Overland

Mullettgate … Fontainebleaugate … The Australian’s case against Victoria’s chief copper Simon Overland … But there is a hole in the key allegation … A few more facts would help … In the meantime enjoy the relentless tub thumping

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Clayton Utz in workplace defo drama

Former Clayton Utz solicitor sues the firm for defamation … Email sent at the direction of former Law Soc prez Joe Catanzariti … Partners argue that proposed amended statement of claim “seriously prejudices them” ... Justice Simpson says firm’s submission is “inapt”

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Land of the rising bum

Pious Cant, trapped at Big Law in Tokyo, examines frottage brought on by the excitement of high-end economic activity … Making obscene amounts of money increases the libidinous quotient … The BBC is to blame

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The pretenders

The condition of bar readers eight years ago ... Fresh crop of penguins … Early training to defend the untenable … Drinkers, gossipers, opiners, whippersnappers and obsessives released into the community … From the archive, June 2010 ... Our blogger Fledgling reports 

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The perils of protect

The aid flotilla attempting to breach the Israeli blockade is just the latest in the Gaza protest movement … Australian lawyers Ann Cunningham and Stephen Keim report on the Cairo protests earlier this year … US Embassy showed it has the muscle to halt violence by Egyptian security forces 

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Droning on about targeted killing

Our Man in Washington ... The cynical view is that Elena Kagan suits Prez Obama’s concepts of executive power … Latest thinking from the US Supremes on juvenile and sex offenders … Foreign detainees have no habeas rights … Assassination by drone and the law of war … Roger Fitch reports

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Freedom fighters to the barricades

A legal profession regulated by layers not lawyers … Independence in tatters … Judges and trade union reps rise-up against proposed national reforms … The English legal system remains strangely unthreatened by non-lawyer regulators … Samantha Bowers reports

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