As we approach the end of the financial year, many members would normally consider upcoming holidays. While lockdowns and ongoing restrictions have put a dampener on some travel plans, it is important to take the opportunity, if you can, to have a break from work and engage in some rest and recuperation. Ours is a stressful profession. As most of us found out last year, a year without holidays is a pretty grim prospect.
I anticipate that the Bar’s poll in relation to membership of the LCA will open later today. The poll will remain open until Monday, 28 June. May I again urge all members to have their views on this important matter considered, by voting. I reiterate that the result of the poll will determine the Bar’s ongoing relationship with the LCA.
The Bar’s membership of the Law Council of Australia (LCA) has been a topic of discussion for some months. To briefly recap, the capitation fee owing to the LCA had not been paid by the previous Bar Council and was overdue. We elected to pay the outstanding debt, thereby securing membership for the current financial year. In December last year, we gave notice to the LCA of our intention not to renew our membership when it fell due, in order to avoid automatically incurring capitation fees for the 2021-2022 year. We hoped to negotiate a better financial arrangement, however that has not been possible.
The Governor-General in Council has appointed Helen Rofe QC as a judge of the Federal Court of Australia in the Victorian registry, commencing on 12 July 2021.
Details of the welcome ceremony will be advised when they become known.
Len, nicknamed the ‘Count’ because of his aristocratic bearing, enduring courtesy and enviable command of every situation, died on 30 May 2021 at the age of 85. He was born in Wolomin, near Warsaw, in 1935. His father was, as he described him, from the Polish landed gentry with estates near Minsk, in Byelorussia, so his nickname was not altogether undeserved. The story of his life in Russian, and later German, occupied Poland before and during the second World War, his flight with his elder sister and brother-in-law to Switzerland and then, as a 15 year old ‘displaced person’, to Australia in 1950 was told by him for the first time at his farewell as a Judge of the County Court of Victoria on 6 September 2007. This story of his early life is incredible and inspiring. Please read it here. If you do not shed a tear you are heartless.
To say the least, it is disappointing to be writing this edition of In Brief in what is now the middle of another lockdown. Hopefully, the extension will have the desired effect and allow us to return to relative normality shortly. Several Bar functions have had to be postponed and we will advise of new dates as soon as possible.
