Defamatorium … The mother of all hellish defamation cases … Years in the making … Endless drama … Barristers birched for lack of computer skills … Samantha Bowers reports ... more

From Justinian’s hard copy archive … The NSW bar’s great struggles against John Basten and Wendy Bacon … Regarded as ratbags in the early 1980s … Today, pillars of the Establishment ... more

The Bill of Rights war … Proscrustes, zombie-like, fights back … More bunk from Prof Allan in Queensland … Unchecked executive power is having a lovely time in Australia … Whereas the Poms are applying restraints on over-the-top coppers and spooks ... more

A coven of overcompensating womyn disturbs Vicki’s life at the Firm … It must be catching … She now senses the smoldering development of her own sociopathic possibilities ... more

Property shocks … Godwin Grech takes interior design to an exciting new level … Coppers haven’t closed the book on Grech investigation … Drama in John Alexander’s steam room … Grouting horror … Too much French in Glenmore Road ... more

Melbourne silk Paul Scanlon in the frame, again … Victory at any price … Inappropriate closing address … Trial judge Jack Forrest also knuckle-rapped … VWA defending with no real case ... more

How many judges does it take to work out whether leave should be given for a workplace injury claim? ... Never enough … The Lotto barrel spins until “reasoning” is exhausted ... more

Security agencies die in a ditch over seven redacted paragraphs in Binyam Mohamed case … What was all the fuss about? ... Dishonest evidence from MI5 … Stephen Keim reports ... more

Adventures with Square, Esq … Introducing Pious Cant, blogging from his big law associate’s desk on a little island in Japan … He ventures into the presence of a partner whose mathematical rigidity is so severe that it brings on a bout of lap-dancing ... more

Update ... Victorian Supreme Court judges take legal advice on salary overpayments … Stand-off with the government … Nothing so simple as just paying back the money ... more

Another big firm commercial litigation solicitor tapped for the NSW Supreme Court … Due diligence completed … Announcement awaited ... more

A lot of fruity-sounding rhetoric accompanies “judicial independence” ... It’s really a trade union thing … French CJ, Bindi Irwin and The Mensch are among the most trusted Australians ... more

Sentencing of former Chatswood solicitor Christopher Fitzsimons … Manic gambler chomped through trust account money … Custodial policy for fraudulent solicitor with bi-polar disorder and alcohol dependence … Samantha Bowers reports ... more

Western Australia maintains its reputation for cocked-up prosecutions … The DPP defiant in the face of glaring oversights and errors … Flawed forensic approach not addressed … Tom Westbrook reports on the case of Patrick Waring ... more

Justinian remembers … Nicolas Cowdery’s famous blast about the inward-looking, mean-spirited and reactionary leadership of the legal profession … The Babette Smith affair, or how not to sack a CEO of the Bar ‘n’ Grill … Bad blood runs freely … All from our hard copy archive ... more

Capitalism is a beautiful thing … Rude citizens take an opportunity to poke out their tongues at Peter Jacobson and his Kookaburra decision … And CSR’s asbestos restructure attracts some scabby opponents ... more

Talk of Supreme Court reshuffle … Judicial appointments in chaos because of senate obstruction … Obama’s Nixonesque management style … Administration confirms it has authority to assassinate troublemakers at home and abroad … Confusion confounds terror trials ... more

Cross-cultural hobnobbing … Last day of the big American Bar conference in Sydney … Aspersions cast freely … No shortage of sponsored refreshments … Yarran Hominh reports ... more

Judicial tolerance on display as Supreme Court explores the nickname “Ankles” ... Ray Chesterton v 2UE ... Old rugby league reporter savaged by John Laws … When friends fall out ... more

Who said there was sexual repression in the British Isles? ... From footballers to politicians, they’re at it like stoats … Leverhulme visits Belfast and gets the lowdown on the “Swish Family Robinson” ... more

Evan Whitton at Soderbergh’s Tot Mom ... Master crims diddle the system … A few cards that War Minister Forkbender could play … Who runs America? ... And other conundrums ... more

Notes from the Red Mass … What is Spiggsie on about? ... Standing room only at Katzmann’s glittering swearing-in ... more

What sort of judges do we really want? ... Michael Kirby and Nino Scalia get it on in the NSW Banco Court … Horns locked on application of “foreign” laws … Bills of Rights … Democracy … Reporter Yarran Hominh was there with his notebook ... more

You didn’t need an ICAC inquiry to discover that the McGurk tape story was largely a pile of old cobblers … Here’s Justinian’s take on the tale from September last year … A cast of moth-eaten lags filled the blatts with desperado boasts of daring-do … All a delicious escape that signified nothing, at least not yet ... more

Incredibly awful address to the jury by defence counsel in a capital case does not move the US Supreme Court to lift a protective finger … Let death prevail … Stephen Keim reports ... more

We’re fortunate indeed to have enticed the indefatigable Norman O’Bryan AM SC onto the couch … The man who put the spanner in the works of VicBar’s chambers and clerking closed shop … He opens up about his fears, regrets and talents ... more

NT Supremes uphold prof misconduct findings against solicitor who made conflict of interest allegations against big Darwin law shop Cridlands and three of its lawyers … Buffalo Bruce reports ... more

Justinian introduces a crossword puzzle specifically designed for lawyers – partly cryptic, partly not … It’s composed by Stephen Clarke, who this month took out The Times of London’s clue setting challenge … Download and give the old brain a stretch ... more

Up pops Melbourne’s favourite Spanish noshery within striking distance of a clutch of legal stomachs … Jaws makes a bold claim that the paella is nestled deep in the soul of Melbournians ... more

Percy’s back with a shocking story of embezzlement in Honkers … Old judge looted by his errant son-in-law broker … You can’t choose your rellies ... more

Jackson inquiry in UK is the latest in an ageless line of reports into lawyers’ costs … Success fees out … Contingency fees in … What’s worse? ... more

Mary Macken, President of the NSW Law Society, linguist, weightlifter and lawyer for Sydney Buses, unburdens herself on Justinian’s couch … Disturbing personal obsessions revealed … French culture racing through her veins … Denial that other Mackens covet high office ... more

The Firm is a cerebral wasteland … Senior associate turns vegan … “Holistic” response not applicable to food decisions … Were lawyers always this way or did the law make them so? ... Vicki Mole rips ... more

Companies transmogrify into people as US Supreme Court strikes down laws limiting corporate funding of politicians … The deadline has come and gone but Guantánamo remains open for business … New evidence on detainee “suicides” ... The laws of war don’t apply to war ... more

The then Media Watch host and one of the country’s most magnificent silks gently birched in the High Court for not knowing the rules … Plucked from Justinian’s hardcopy archive ... more

Batty Tobacco thinks that a judge’s criticism of the “document retention” policy smacks of apprehended bias … Appeal judges divided on the thought process of the difficult to locate “fair minded lay observer” ... more

Solicitor not guilty of professional misconduct only unsatisfactory conduct … Penalty halved … Basten calls for proper judges to preside over tribunal hearings into lawyer misconduct … Court of Appeal to the rescue ... more

December saw some high profile defamation cases going the way of media defendants … There was a verdict for The Sydney Morning Herald in the Roco Roco restaurant review case … The same day The Australian won the war crimes case brought by Serbian paramilitary commander Captain Dragan … However, there was one case that month in which the media’s truth defence failed in the face of compelling cross-examination … Transcript ... more

Struggle over legal fees paid by alleged drug dealers produces some intriguing arguments over who owns the loot … Sizzling retainer agreement in contention ... more

The Justice Department under Eric Holder is in crisis … Blackwater mercenaries immunised from prosecution for Iraqi shootings … DoJ holds to the Bush terror line … Roger Fitch reports on the latest cases stirring Washington ... more