Australia's Top Two Legal Officers Are At War Over Government Advice;
Careers are on the line as a dispute between Australia's two most senior legal officers comes to a head in Canberra as the Attorney-General George Brandis and Solicitor-General Justin Gleeson face off in Senate hearing today. On Wednesday, a Senate committee took evidence in an inquiry investigating the issue of a direction from Attorney-General George Brandis to the solicitor-general, Justin Gleeson.
By the end of the day, the shadow attorney-general, Mark Dreyfus, was calling on Brandis to resign for misleading parliament and lying to the Australian people, or for the prime minister to sack him. So what has Brandis done – or is alleged to have done – that has led to these calls? Continue reading this story online via abc.net.au. For more information on the role of the Solicitor General, this 2016 publication is available in the library now; The role of the Solicitor-General : negotiating law, politics and the public interest by Gabrielle Appleby
New statistics from Bond University show more is needed to support lawyers and law students, or the future of the legal profession could be at risk.
New research conducted by the university has revealed that one third of Australian solicitors, one third of Australian law students and one fifth of Australian barristers have reported elevated levels of psychological distress.
The research also indicated that one third of law students reported increased levels of stress after their first year of study.
Bond University faculty of law professor Rachael Field said this particular statistic was first reported in 2009 and has been consistently reinforced by various studies since then. Read More
Three of the 15 barristers to be appointed senior counsel in NSW in 2016 are women.
The NSW Bar Association has announced its 2016 senior counsel roll call. A total of 15 barristers will receive the honour this year, three of whom are women. The number marks a growth in women silks by just over a quarter of a percentage point since 2014.
Kate Williams, Katherine Richardson and Kara Shead have been recognised alongside their peers Christopher O’Donnell, Roger Marshall, Victor Kerr, Nicholas Chen, Adam Casselden, David Kell, Scott Goodman, Alexander Dawson, Jason Potts, Scott Nixon, Nicholas Owens and Doran Cook.
The invitation to take silk is a mark of standing and recognises experience, skill, integrity and honesty, among other qualities. Barristers with the designation of senior counsel are given the abbreviated post-nominal ‘SC’ in their title.
The esteemed list was announced last week by NSW Bar Association president Noel Hutley SC.
This is the third consecutive year that three women have been invited to take silk in NSW, despite the overall number of appointees fluctuating between 18, 26 and 15 over the 2014-16 period.
Statistics provided by the NSW Bar Association show that in that same period, the percentage of total women silks inched from 9.87 per cent to 10.13 per cent of total senior counsel in NSW.
Women presently make up 21.6 per cent of barristers who hold a practising certificate in the state.
According to the 2014 annual Women in NSW report, women held 33.8 per cent of positions at the bench of the NSW judiciary, with women practitioners making up only 20.8 per cent of the NSW bar. That same report described the proportion of women holding senior roles in the top echelons of the NSW legal profession as a “very low base”. Read More
A Youtube user has taken the contention out of Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton's debate on Sunday night and turned their encounter into... a duet!
Many social media users had already likened the pair's circling of each during the debate as a song performance - and now this genius mash-up has reimagined Trump's circling of Clinton as a duet to Dirty Dancing theme song I've Had the Time of My Life. It's so great. Watch the video via youtube here!
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