Bar Council met last night. Michael Shand AM QC, Chair of the IT Steering Committee reported to Bar Council on the progress of the tendering process of the IT development project. The tendering process has been complex and the IT Steering Committee are to be congratulated and thanked for their continuing efforts in this regard. The Committee hopes to be in a position to make a recommendation to Bar Council in the upcoming weeks as to a preferred provider of the new IT system.
The Bar will be conducting sexual harassment awareness training seminars in August. Attendance at a seminar is a pre-requisite for members who have applied for silk in 2022. The seminars will be offered on three separate occasions, namely: Saturday 13 August, Tuesday 16 August and Sunday 21 August. Further details will be provided shortly.
This week the legal profession extended welcomes to Magistrates Kirstie Grigor, Julia Barling and Christina Windisch. Darryl Burnett attended the Welcome ceremonies on Tuesday and Friday on behalf of the Bar. On behalf of the Bar, I extend my congratulations and best wishes to each of our new Magistrates on their appointments.
The Welcome ceremony for her Honour Judge Nola Karapanagiotidis will be held at 9:15am on Thursday, 28 July in the County Court of Victoria.
Róisín Annesley QC
Thank you to those members who have paid their subscriptions by the due date. If you have not paid your Subscriptions for the 2022-2023 Financial Year, we ask members to make payment of your subscription now. Please click here. If you have any questions relating to your subscription, please contact membership or call on 9225 8326.
Peer Support Barristers are barristers who have volunteered to be contacted by members and have been trained to provide support and advice to those who have experienced or observed discrimination, sexual harassment and/or workplace bullying.
Please see here for the list of Peer Support Barristers.
Members working on pro bono matters can once again seek assistance from selected Monash University law students through the Open Justice Project.
Students can assist with legal and paralegal tasks, such as legal research, simple drafting, and preparing chronologies or summaries of evidence. The Project is now in its second year. From its first year, barristers reported that they received very high-quality assistance on a wide range of matters. Barristers seeking the assistance of a student for a pro bono matter should complete the request form on the Open Justice Project webpage.
The Open Justice Project is a collaboration between the Victorian Bar and the Monash Faculty of Law. It establishes a panel of later year undergraduate and postgraduate students at the Faculty who provide pro bono legal assistance (such as research and paralegal assistance) to barristers in pro bono matters. The Patron of the Project is the Honourable Chris Maxwell AC, President of the Court of Appeal. Members can see the Open Justice Project web page for further information about the Project here.
Nominations for the next Victorian Bar Pro Bono Awards are still open.
The next Victorian Bar Pro Bono Awards Ceremony is scheduled for March 2023, and nominations for the 2023 awards are open until November 2022.
If you are aware of barristers who are making an outstanding contribution representing parties on a pro bono basis, please consider making nominations throughout the nomination period.
For more information or to submit a nomination, click here.
Information about the Awards includes a short video featuring the Honourable Chris Maxwell AC, President of the Victorian Court of Appeal, explaining how pro bono assistance provided by barristers makes a difference to vulnerable people in our community. The Pro Bono Committee is grateful to Michael Rivette, barrister and past Deputy Chair of the Pro Bono Committee and past Chair of the Communications Committee, for all his hard work in creating this excellent video.
Members are reminded that information about how you can get involved in the Victorian Bar’s Pro Bono Schemes is available on the Pro Bono page of the members’ website here.
The Art & Collections Committee is pleased to advise that the audio-visual recordings of “Unveiling the Enigmatic Mr Deakin: a lecture by Emeritus Prof. Judith Brett” (17 November 2021) and “Artist & Sitter: In conversation with Bill Henson and the Hon. Kenneth Hayne AC QC”, a panel discussion hosted by Daniel Kinsey for Law Week 2022 are now available for viewing on the VicBar website here.
The following are highlights of upcoming CPD and events for Victorian Bar members. You must be a member of the Victorian Bar and log into the VicBar website to view these events.
For more upcoming CPD events, please visit our listings here.
Studio 11 is delighted to host its current solo exhibition Aerial Landscapes of Australia featuring 22 works by local artist Greg Mallyon who is an accomplished and highly collectable artist with a gift for depicting the lyricism of landscape through typographical perspectives. With a Masters in Art (University of NSW), his bold and distinctive paintings are inspired by aerial views of the land below, including geographic features such as lakes, gorges, rivers and deserts, along with the human imprint of cities, buildings, industrial sites and roads. In 2021 Greg won the inaugural National Capital Art Prize for landscape. All works in the exhibition are for sale (with no GST or commission payable). Works sheets are available at Level 11, Owen Dixon Chambers East. The exhibition runs until 16 September 2022. Why not take some time out of your day to come enjoy the exhibition.
Dear Essoign Club Members,
We are open daily from 7:30am – till late and Happy hour is back EVERY EVENING with $5 Beer and Wine from 5:00pm till close.
Breakfast - for dine-in or takeaway.
Lunch – Daily Café Menu take away or delivery.
Lunch Dine-In - A La Carte from midday.
Bar – EVERY EVENING - $5 Beer & Wine from 5pm till late with light snacks available.
Catering & Events - Special lunches, working lunches, private dinners or something special you may have in mind. Email us at essoign@vicbar.com.au
We appreciate your ongoing support and look forward to seeing you in the Club.
Victorian Bar members are encouraged to use the Member Benefits online portal, where you can access a wide variety of discounts, special offers, and member-only deals as part of your Bar membership.
The exclusive benefits are available Australia-wide and are not generally open to the public.
To activate your account and access the benefits, please click here. You must log in using your vicbar.com.au login details.
Click here for the monthly Best Buys!
The Commercial Division Omnibus Practice Note PNCO 2 of 2022 (“Practice Note”) was published on the County Court of Victoria’s website on 6 July 2022.
You can read about it in the news story published on our website, here.
The new Practice Note will come into operation on 1 August 2022, and represents a significant change in the approach to the management of cases within the Division.
Some key changes include:
Accompanying the Practice Note is the new Commercial Division Standard Orders Booklet (“Standard Orders Booklet”), which corresponds to and draws on the replaceable orders throughout the Practice Note. The Standard Orders Booklet sets out orders in the style and format that the Commercial Division prefers in one easy and accessible document. Practitioners should consult the booklet whenever they draft consent orders to be submitted to the Court.
The Practice Note and Standard Orders Booklet are available here:
Magistrates Court of Victoria will be utilising the Victorian Legal Services Board and Commissioner email address for you as they move forward in their digital transformation journey. Please ensure your email address held by VLSBC is correct and is monitored.
A feature of the new case management system being rolled out in the civil jurisdiction at MCV will be court generated eNotifications that will utilise this email address. If you need any further information please do not hesitate to contact us at cms.project@courts.vic.gov.au.
We wish to advise you of changes from 1 July 2022 under the Administration and Probate Act 1958 and the Defamation Act 2005.
The Attorney-General, Jaclyn Symes MP, as Minister responsible for the Administration and Probate Act 1958, has declared the following:
In addition, the Attorney-General, as Minister responsible for the Defamation Act 2005, has declared the new cap on damages for non-economic loss to be $443,000. This declaration is made in accordance with section 35(3) of that Act.
These declarations were published in the Victorian Government Gazette Number S314-22 on 24 June 2022. A copy is here.
The Council has released new sentencing data for the higher courts (County and Supreme Courts) on SACStat, the Council’s online statistical database. The new data covers sentencing outcomes in the five years to 30 June 2021 for over 250 offences dealt with in the higher courts.
SACStat can be accessed free of charge from the Council's website.
Log in to the Digital Library to access key legal resources no matter where you are – powered by Law Library Victoria. This week we are taking a closer look at HeinOnline:
• Contains 1000s of legal titles all on a single platform
• Features Australian, English, US and Canadian material
• Includes journals, law reports, and legislation
Some standout resources available on this database:
To access HeinOnline and other databases in the Digital Library, register and log in to the Law Library website.
Castan Centre - Human Rights Law Conference
Friday, 22 July 2022
Please join us for the annual Human Rights Law Conference presented by the Castan Centre for Human Rights Law. As the leading human rights conference in Australia, this event provides a vital health check on the state of human rights in Australia and overseas. Join us online via webinar on the 22nd of July.
Please register here.
China: Execution by Organ Removal by Eleos Justice
Thursday, 28 July 2022.
Join us for this topical webinar presented by Eleos Justice in partnership with Capital Punishment Justice Project. China is the world’s largest executioner, and while exact figures remain a state secret, it is estimated that thousands of executions are carried out each year. In this seminar, we speak with Matthew Robertson, whose recent research provides evidence of physicians in China participating in executions by organ removal. Please join us online via webinar on Thursday, 28 July.
Please register here.
Thursday, 28 July 2022 – 5:15pm-6:15pm
Topic: Recent Developments in Admiralty: here and abroad
Justice SC Derrington AM, Justice Stewart
Chaired by Justice Rares
Click here to view the flyer for more information and for the link.
We are thrilled to announce that LAWASIA has officially opened registrations for the 35th LAWASIA Conference, which will be held as a face-to-face event in Sydney, Australia, from 18 to 21 November 2022.
The 35th LAWASIA Conference is the highlight of its professional events program. Bringing together bar leaders, jurists, professional organisations and individual lawyers from across the Asia Pacific region to facilitate the discussion of regional developments in law, including such issues as judicial practice, legal education, cross-border business and investment law, and cross-border dispute resolution.
Visit the official conference website for more information.
The Australian Bar Association, the peak national body representing more than 6,000 barristers throughout Australia and established in 1963, is seeking to engage a motivated senior Executive Assistant to provide support to the President and CEO to further the work of the organisation.
Applications close on 22 July 2022 and should be emailed to CEO@austbar.asn.au.
Further information about the role is also available by emailing CEO@austbar.asn.au.
Click here to view the flyer with more information.
Nominations for the 2022 Australian Young Lawyer Awards (Awards) opened on Friday, 1 July.
The Awards are conducted annually by the Law Council’s Young Lawyers’ Committee and recognise excellence in young (or early career) lawyers and young lawyer organisations.
Nominations will close on Friday, 12 August 2022, at 5:00pm AEST, with the winners expected to be announced in October 2022.
To be eligible for the Award, a nominee must either be a young lawyer (under 36 years) or an early career lawyer (admitted for a period of five years or less) who has made a continuous and outstanding contribution to the profession and the community. Also eligible are young lawyer organisations which have implemented a program relating to professional or community issues over the preceding financial calendar year.
The Law Council has published Guidelines and a Nomination Form.
Please contact Natalie Cooper, Research Officer, on (02) 6246 3724 or at natalie.cooper@lawcouncil.asn.au if you would like further information regarding the Awards.
If you would like to contribute relevant news, events, and updates for barristers and the legal profession to In Brief, please send an email with your content to inbrief@vicbar.com.au or complete this submission form.