In Brief Issue #861

Following on from the huge success that was our London 2016 conference, we are thrilled to announce that the 2018 will be held on Friday the 21 and Saturday the 22 of September, 2018 on Hong Kong island. It is a must-attend event for any barrister, solicitor, or corporate counsel. Tickets will be sold from May 1^st https://www.vicbar.com.au/news-events

The practising certificate (PC) renewals cycle for 2018/19 opened on Monday 19 March 2018. The deadline for renewing your PC without incurring a surcharge is 30 April 2018.

The LPLC requires payment of the professional indemnity insurance (PII) premium by 31 May 2018.

You should have received an email from the Legal Services Board (LSB) outlining details of the PC and PII renewal process. (Information is also provided on the Bar’s website).  

Links for online lodgement are available through your member home page or you may go directly to LSB Online and LPLC website. Login to LSB Online and LPLC renewal using your Practitioner Number as the username (your Practitioner Number is published in the email sent to you by the LSB  or you can contact the Bar Office for assistance). If you experience technical difficulties, please contact the LSB Online help desk by email online@lsbc.vic.gov.au in the first instance.

The LSB Online service deals with all PC administrative matters. There is no printed PC renewal form. Should you require assistance renewing your PC, the Victorian Bar Office can help you to access and use LSB Online, members who wish to attend the Bar office for assistance please do so between 9am - 3pm or contact Daphne Ioannidis on 9225 8326 to make an appointment.

The forms for LPLC Applicant Declaration (PII) are now available from the LPLC’s website or from the Victorian Bar Office on Level 5 205 William Street, however, practitioners are encouraged to renew online.

Please note that the top up Insurance terms and application are not yet available. You will be notified as soon as they become available.

The Victorian Bar has endorsed the Law Council of Australia’s gender equitable briefing policy, which aims to achieve a nationally consistent approach towards bringing about cultural and attitudinal change within the legal profession with respect to gender briefing practices.

Information about the Policy, including FAQs, is available on the Victorian Bar website.

The Policy is available for adoption by individual barristers by completing the form available on the Law Council’s website.

The Bar encourages all members, at all levels of seniority, to show their commitment to equitable briefing by adopting the Policy.

A by-election for the vacant position of Lord Mayor will be held in May 2018. It will be conducted entirely by postal voting, with ballot packs mailed to voters between Monday 23 April and Thursday 26 April.

Voting is compulsory for all voters listed on the Melbourne City Council voters roll at 4.00 pm on Friday 16 March 2018.

When you receive your ballot pack you must complete your ballot paper, and return it as soon as possible using the reply paid envelope.

Alternatively, you may hand-deliver your completed ballot material to the election office by 6.00 pm on Friday 11 May 2018.

Completed ballot material must be posted – or in the hands of the Returning Officer – by 6.00 pm on Friday 11 May 2018, when voting closes. Ballot material posted after this date cannot be accepted and you may incur a fine.

Click here for more information.  

We are pleased to advise that planning is underway for the next Junior Bar Conference for 1 June 2018 in the Neil McPhee Room.

Due to popular demand, this year we are increasing the range and inviting barristers who have practiced for up to 10 years.

An exciting program is currently under development.  More information and invitations will follow soon.

Please save the date and mark this in your calendar.

The Art and Collections Committee invites Bar members to the opening of a retrospective exhibition of art by Ian Friend at the Essoign Club.

Friend's show of prints and paintings dates from 1985 to 2017. Some recent works are for sale. Friend is represented by Gallerysmith in North Melbourne and Andrew Baker in Brisbane.

Ian Friend is an English born abstract artist who has lived in Australia since the mid 1980s. His works hang in the Tate Gallery, the National Galleries in Canberra and Melbourne and in many other public and private collections.

The exhibition opened on Friday 13 April will run for six weeks.

Vicbar barrister (and part time comedian) John Leung is producing a stand-up open mic for the legal industry in the 2018 Melbourne International Comedy Festival called “Trial and Error”.  A number of lawyers, including members of the Bar will be trying their hand at comedy for the first time.  “Trial and Error" will also include experienced comedian-lawyers including John himself, Jess Moir, Andrew Portelli and Cait Johnson. All profits from the show will be donated to the Tristan Jepson Memorial Foundation.

Tickets available here: https://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2018/shows/trial-and-error

We want your opinion.
Your feedback is important to us.
Please submit your feedback and/or any suggestions for the Essoign Club at your next visit via our new suggestion box in the Club or email us at essoign@vicbar.com.au. 
Menu, Beverages, Club décor, Special events, Service and or anything you would like us to know, we want your opinion.
We have a new Café and Breakfast menu coming soon. Any suggestions?

Art Exhibition at Level 11 Owen Dixon Chambers East (aka Studio 11). Barristers on Level 11 of ODC East invite you to come view solo art exhibition by Melbourne Artist, Claire Lefebvre, "Lush. Layer Light", featuring some 20 works, comprising a series of paintings and limited edition prints which use layering techniques and mark making such as dots and lines. The works explore human emotion and perception as well as the material potential of acrylic paint, ink and various gloss and matte mediums. The paintings allude to architectural and biological forms, with surfaces which invite touch.

The exhibition runs from 16 April - 29 June. The works are for sale with no commission payable. Work sheets are found on level 11 East. Come up, have a break and just admire the work which is there to be enjoyed and shared.  

"Studio 11" as it is colloquially referred to hosts art exhibitions on a term by term, voluntary basis. The aim is to allow all members of the Victorian Bar, colleagues, clients, staff, family and friends to easily access, enjoy and celebrate various original art by local artists in the work environment.

A Bernstein Collection – Guest conductor Jose Luis Gomez’s program celebrates the music of American goliath Leonard Bernstein and his close colleagues Aaron Copland and Samuel Barber.

Labor Lawyers invite you to a function with guest speaker Mark Dreyfus, Federal Shadow Attorney General:
6 pm on Thursday 3 May 2018.

Slate Restaurant and Bar, 9 Goldsborough Lane (mezzanine level) Melbourne (Entry up the ramp of the CGU building on corner of Little Bourke Street and William Street).

Entry includes finger food. Drinks at bar prices.s.

Prices are as follows:

Non-members $60
Members $40
Membership plus entry $55
Trainees, first to fourth year solicitors and first year barristers $20
Law students and Leo Cussen students $10

CLICK HERE TO BOOK YOUR TICKETS.

The function will be preceded by the Labor Lawyers Society of Victoria AGM at 5.15pm at the same venue.
Please find attached notice of AGM

We look forward to seeing you at the function and/or the AGM.  If you are unable to attend but wish to renew your membership, please click this link.

Check out this year’s HRAFF program featuring a stellar line up of films, art, talks and performances, including Opening Night Film, After the Apology (3 May), Matthew Sleeth’s film Guilty (4 May) about Muyuran Sukumaran’s last 72 hours and World Premier of Border Politics (12 May) featuring Julian Burnside QC.  Visit www.hraff.org.au for more info and tickets. 

See the stories that matter.   

The Sentencing Advisory Council wants to hear from people in the criminal justice system and from the wider the community about offender-paid restitution and compensation in Victoria.

In particular, Council seeks your input on:

• Whether offender-paid compensation orders should become sentencing orders;
• Whether purposes of sentencing should include the financial reparation of victims; and
• How the orders should be enforced.

Your submissions will inform our advice to the Attorney-General on possible changes to restitution and compensation orders in Victoria.

Details of the existing system, and some options for reform can be found in the Restitution and Compensation Orders: Issues and Options Paper on Council’s website.

Your submissions can be detailed or brief, and can be made in person, in writing, or via an online survey. You can choose whether your submission is public, anonymous, or confidential.

The deadline for submissions is Today, Friday 20 April 2018.

For more information visit the Council’s website, or call 1300 363 196

Throughout April and May the Court of Appeal will be hosting two-part practical appellate advocacy workshops for both criminal and civil areas of law. In these free workshops, Judges of Appeal, together with members of the Victorian Bar, will demonstrate appellate advocacy in action. Learn what works (and what does not), how to make it work for you and how to develop your own appellate practice. These workshops are primarily aimed at barristers or solicitors practising or wishing to practise in the Court of Appeal.

Click here for more information.

The Federal Court of Australia, together with the IFA Australian branch and the Melbourne Law School, invites you to a Tax Workshop on Monday 30 April 2018.

Thursday 3 May, 1.15pm-1.40pm

The Law Library of Victoria invites you to attend our Switch On… information sessions. These twenty-five minute sessions are suited to judicial officers, court staff, legal professionals, law students, and anyone with an interest in law.

JADE is a freemium Australian current awareness service and legal research platform designed to make it easier to find, use, share and present accurate legal information. This session will enable you to perform faster-than-normal complex searches to identify case law, legislative points and keypoints in authorities.

All are welcome and entry is free. To RSVP please email libraryevents@supcourt.vic.gov.au

Competition Law Conference 2018

This annual one-day Conference will be held in Sydney on Saturday 5 May 2018 at the Sheraton on the Park Hotel, Sydney.

The Conference, which has been held since 1989, continues to attract about 100 registrants, including Federal Court Judges, Judges from New Zealand, regulators from Australia and New Zealand, lawyers from both Australia and New Zealand, economists and academics.

The Hon. Justice Lindsay Foster will address the conference as the Keynote Speaker on the topic: “Concerted Practices; A Contravention without a definition”

Venue: Sheraton on the Park, Sydney
Date: Saturday 5 May 2018
Time: 9.15 am to 4.30 pm (registration opens at 8.45am)
CPD Strand: Substantive Law, Practice & Procedure
CPD Points: 5 (one point per hour excluding breaks)

For further details, and to download the full programme and registration form, please follow this link or email chrishodgekiss@bigpond.com

The Council of Law Reporting for Victoria, the Incorporated Council of Law Reporting for England and Wales, and the Council of Law Reporting for New South Wales cordially invite you to drinks and canapés celebrating developments and collaborations in the law reporting sector.

Location and Date: Melbourne 10 May 2018 5.30pm RACV City Club, 501 Bourke St, Melbourne

Introductory remarks by The Hon Justice Cameron Macaulay Supreme Court of Victoria 

Places are limited. 

Please RSVP by email to RSVP@littlewilliam.com.au by 17 April 2018.

The Panel

Join the new Legal Services Commissioner and a panel of lawyers drawn from small to medium private, government and in-house practice as they discuss and debate the challenges to the sustainability of legal practice in the 21st Century.

Expert Panellists

Fiona McLeay, Victorian Legal Services Commissioner
Peter Moran, Principal, Peer Legal
Adrian Shavitsky, Director,Commercial Law, Department of Economic Development, Jobs, Transport & Resources
Tarryn Billings, Senior Corporate Solicitor, Royal Automobile Club of Victoria

DATE: Tuesday 15 May, 2018
TIME: 7.45am – 8.45am (7.15am light breakfast served)
VENUE: Monash Law Chambers, 555 Lonsdale Street, Melbourne
RSVP: Wednesday 9 May Click HERE

Click here for more information and to register for this event. 

Topic: Decoding Privacy Protection in Australia: Future Directions and Challenges

Speakers: Professor David Watts (former Victorian Privacy Commissioner) and Dr Bridget Bainbridge (privacy by design expert)

Location: La Trobe University, City Campus, 360 Collins Street, Level 2, Room 2.15, Melbourne, VIC 3000

Date & time: Wed. 16 May 2018, 12:30 pm – 2:00 pm AEST

Registration and further information: https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/decoding-privacy-protection-in-australia-future-directions-and-challenges-tickets-44578171511

Fast track your way to a career in international commercial arbitration. Registrations are now open for the 2018 CIArb Accelerated Route Towards Fellowship (ARF) course which will be held from 19 - 20 May 2018 at the Melbourne Commercial Arbitration and Mediation Centre.  Delivered by the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (CIArb) this course is intended for suitably qualified candidates who are practising lawyers with at least 10 years’ standing and who have  experience in arbitration.  The Course syllabus is based on international arbitration law and it is essential that candidates have at least a reasonable working knowledge of the UNCITRAL Model Law and UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules. CIArb accreditation carries a global qualification in the growing practice of international arbitration.   Places are limited. For further details and to register please click here.

What will 2050's court system look like? Will technological advances merely create the need for new laws or do they present a threat to the rule of law? Does the legal profession still have a future?  And if so, what is it? How do "lawyerbots" actually work? And do videolink hearings represent the future of the court system or a breakdown of the division between court and prison?

These are just a few of the questions to be raised at “Forces of Change: Defining Future Justice”, the Australasian Institute of Judicial Administration’s next conference, 24 - 26 May at Brisbane’s Stamford Plaza Hotel.

The conference aims to conceptualise and visualise the shape of future justice and hold an in-depth conversation on the fundamental principles that underpin our concept of justice but may be challenged in a period of significant change and disruption.

The line-up of speakers contributing is an eclectic mix of judges, academics and tech-experts. It includes the Chief Justice of New Zealand, Dame Sian Elias, the High Court's Justice Michelle Gordon, Justice Helen Winkelmann from NZ’s Court of Appeal and Chief Judge Peter Kidd of the County Court. Other speakers will include  Mr Murray Bruce, formerly with IBM’s AI platform "Watson", CSIRO IP expert Mr Rajiv Cabraal, lawyerbot inventors Mr Athol Birtley and Mr Adrian Cartland, and “blockchain” expert Dr Philippa Ryan, from the University of Technology, Sydney

Beginning with a keynote talk on "the world in the year 2050", the conference will feature an opening address on the experience of the use of technology in the legal system in England and Wales, by the Right Hon Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, the former Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales. This will be followed by a panel discussion chaired by Radio National’s The Law Report presenter Damien Carrick.

Subsequent sessions include: a hands-on introduction to lawyerbots and AI; a look at the new laws that will be required by new technologies; and a survey of the future mental health needs of judicial officers and court staff. To close, a session on "management of change" will challenge participants to identify their own views. Are you an "early adopter"? Or a "maintain the rager"? Come along and join the conversation.

See the program and register at http://www.futurejustice2018.com/

Date: 6 - 8 June 2018, Vientiane, Laos 
Venue: Crowne Plaza Vientiane 
Website: http://www.lawasia.asn.au/familylaw2018.html  
Theme: ‘Family Law: Realities, Expectations and Hope’ 
Registration: Opening in February 

Keynote Speaker: The Honourable John Pascoe AC CVO 

The conference will focus on a range of cross border family law and children’ rights issues including: 
 

• trafficking of the vulnerable;
• surrogacy and ethical challenges;
• impact of social media on family law;
• support for families and children in distress;
• effective negotiations and understanding the client, the lawyer and the child;
• technology in family law practice;
• International family law and Conventions;
• the protection of vulnerable members of the family;
• estrangement and alienation and future world – family law in the next decade.

Please visit the conference website to register and for more information on travel, accommodation and the conference program: http://www.lawasia.asn.au/familylaw2018.html   

The 9th annual Family Law conference in Bali is to be held from 8 - 11 June at the Oberoi Hotel. This conference will include a session on negotiation which may be of interest to those who do not practice in family law, and attendees at this conference will be from the Northern Territory, New South Wales and Victoria.

Date: 11-13 July 2018
Venue: Melbourne Law School

From 11 - 13 July 2018, Melbourne Law School will hold the third biennial Public Law Conference, co-organised by the University of Melbourne and the University of Cambridge. The theme of the 2018 conference is ‘The Frontiers of Public Law’. The Public Law series is the pre-eminent regular forum for the discussion of public law matters in the common law world. The first two conferences in the series were held at Cambridge in 2014 and 2016. The 2018 conference will feature approximately 80 speakers, including leading judges, practitioners and scholars from across the common law world, and bring together over 300 delegates to discuss the most important issues in public law today. Keynote speakers include Lord Mance (UKSC), Hon Mr Kenneth Hayne (formerly HCA), Justice Debbie Mortimer (FCA), Sir Jack Beatson (English Court of Appeal), Justice Grant Huscroft (Ontario Court of Appeal), Justice Matthew Palmer (NZ High Court), Prof Cheryl Saunders (Melbourne), Prof David Feldman (Cambridge), Prof Anne Davies (Oxford), Prof Carol Harlow (LSE), Prof Mark Aronson (UNSW), Prof Anne Twomey (Sydney), Prof Benedict Kingsbury (NYU), and Prof Megan Davis (UNSW).

For further information and to register please visit our website: http://law.unimelb.edu.au/public-law-conference

Date: 17 - 20 July 2018
Venue: Melbourne Law School

From 17 - 20 July 2018, Melbourne Law School will host the 9^th biennial Obligations Conference in conjunction with the Faculty of Law at the University of Oxford. The biennial Obligations Conferences bring together scholars and practitioners from throughout the common law world to discuss current issues in contract law, the law of torts, equity, and unjust enrichment. The Obligations Conference is the leading international forum for discussion of these subject areas. Approximately 90 presentations will be made over the three days of the conference, including keynote presentations by Professor Andrew Burrows (Oxford), the Hon Justice James Edelman (High Court of Australia), the Hon Justice Michelle Gordon (High Court of Australia), Professor Birke Häcker (Oxford), the Hon Justice Mark Leeming (NSW Court of Appeal), Professor Matthew Harding (Melbourne), and Professor Liam Murphy (NYU).

For further information and to register please visit our website: http://law.unimelb.edu.au/obligations9