Letter from London

Fighting SLAPP and tickle with a task force ... Law firm managing partner siphoned £64 million from the clients for a property spree ...  Bed sheets assist terror accused escape from pokey ... Birth father looped into adoption details ... Throwing the book at climate protestors ... Floyd Alexander-Hunt reporting from the Old Dart

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Wither pro bono?

There's no such thing as a free lunch ... And free lawyers are just as scarce ... Pro bono arrangement scrapped by SA appeal court ... Disincentive for lawyers to do the hard yards on wrongful conviction cases ... Hugh Selby writes 

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Voices from on High

Capturing the essence of constitutional thinking ... Three former High Court judges write in favour of the Voice ... One against (three guesses) ... Overview of the principal contentions ... Justinian wields the scissors and paste pot

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Unclean Bill of Health

Victoria's plan for centralised health records ... Compulsory opt-in ... No opt-out ... Human rights and privacy concerns ... Potential leakage of sensitive personal details ... Digital records of the unhealthy ... Hugh Vuillier reports from Yarraside 

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Postcard from Paris

Strikes, protests and disruption ... The revolutionary spirit persists over planned new retirement age for French workers ... Wine spilt in the 4th ... Country could run out of pension money as contributions dwindle ... Sir Withnail on the latest manifestations 

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Lunar event

An exam paper with built-in "reputational damage" ... University grovels to upset law student ... Same scenario used in earlier exams ... Extension of time granted for stress ... Max Shanahan reports on an awful calamity  

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Heaven's gateway

Vic Bar readers' course and exam ... Monstrously hard exam with high failure rate ... Clogged course ... Bulging waiting lists ... Skewed demographic of bar entrants ... The overflow ... Barriers to entry ... Joseph Friedman reports 

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The political message machine

Government propaganda ... Advertising expenditure by state and federal governments ... Money is no object ... Taxpayer funds for political purposes ... Another version of pork-barrelling ... Hugh Vuillier reports 

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Deaf ears

Horse guard for Sydney law students at annual knees-up ... Attempt to revive fond memories of the Malcolm Turnbull protest ... Dub-dub remix at White Bay ... Barely Legal reports 

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Civil Procedure and the Old Testament

In search of dispute resolution ... What the Bible tells us about negotiation and arbitration ... Eve and the serpent - a failure to negotiate properly ... Catastrophic consequences ... King Solomon and the Commercial Arbitration Act ... Just, quick and cheap ... Eamonn Murphy and Ariana Haghighi escape from a dry tutorial

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Ding Dong

Chief Justice Andrew Bell ... Urging an end to remoteness ... At loggerheads with Victorian counterpart ... Profession in peril ... Conviviality is king ... Trouble padding-up ... Max Shanahan reports 

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Freeing judges to be human

Sifting the digital histories of lawyers headed to the judiciary ... Social media engagement that shows a life led more fully may also act as a disqualification ... Judges being louche as youngsters is not something we're used to ... We should adapt, otherwise the selection pond gets smaller ... From Nina Dillon Britton 

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Cancelling Dicey

Order of the Gilded Wombat ... Hands on the staff but keep your hands off the gongs ... What about Queen's Counsel? ... Campaign to confiscate honours from sexual offenders ... Comparison with the Einfeld case ... New discrimination and harassment rules for briefs ... Theodora on the case

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The ethnography of law school electives

The subjects they choose ... Divining the character and culture of law students ... What becomes of them? ... Corporations and tax ... Labour law ... Sports law ... Antonin Scalia law ... Human rights .. Equity ... Philosophy ... The different choices are defining ... Barely Legal reports 

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Damp spirits

Scenes from a law school ... Rain ... Back to Zoom ... It's too wet to think ... Fear of law ... Thucydides ... Balzac ... Hart-Fuller ... Maxim Shanahan's Barely Legal 

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