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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The never ending quest

Injured workers seem to have multiple bites of the cherry until they stumble on the “right” opinion from a medical panel … Barry Lane’s eyes are watering as he contemplates the cost to the long suffering taxpayer … Time for some parliamentary penmanship

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Shop talk

Application of contemporary standards to use of the F%#*-word in public … Context is everything in coming to grips with indecent language … Justice Beach shows the way in Easter egg drama

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Doctors v Lawyers

The tricky business of making doctors liable for their negligence, while exempting lawyers from liability for theirs … With the High Court on side, how can the lawyers lose? ... Tulkinghorn teases the issue

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A jihad on adversarialism

Portia attended the big chinwag in Melbourne on mediation andnon-adversarial justice … She was singularly unimpressed … It put her inmind of a Billy Graham evangelical meeting … What’s happened to the old lovefor the godless adversarial joust?

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Magic allure of the Magic Circle

Leverhulme talks to Michael White, a lad from Brisbane who chanced his armin London … Amid the fantastic challenges of his job he faced a crisis ofhis own … Despite the rewards, Queensland beckons

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Murdoch's matey world

Guthrie v News Ltd. William Collins, Justinian’s veteran observer ofMelbourne’s curial world, thinks Bruce Guthrie’s win against Harto andBlunders is on the margins of being a Pyrrhic one

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Hungry to sell

Cross examination … Marvel at how Peter Blunden handles tight cornersin Guthriev News Ltd ... Norman O’Bryan on a roll … Tabloid temperaments flare … Tom Westbrook wades through the transcript

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