News & Events | Victorian Bar

Latest News & Events

21Dec

In Brief

In Brief Issue #896

Season's Greetings

The Victorian Bar wishes all members a safe, happy and relaxing festive season.

14Dec

In Brief

Yesterday, our 25 newest silks took their bows in ceremonial sittings of the Supreme Court, the Federal Court and the Family Court, in the presence of many members of the judiciary and our Bar, as well as their families and friends.

7Dec

In Brief

In Brief Issue #894

Royal Commission into the Management of Informants

On Monday, the Victorian Government announced a Royal Commission into the Management of Informants, after the High Court and the Victorian Court of Appeal lifted certain suppression orders in the matters of AB v CD and EF v CD.

30Nov

In Brief

In Brief Issue #893

New Silks 2018

If I had a dollar for every time someone has said to me in the past month, “when are the silks being announced?” I’d be, um, moderately well off (as if I knew the date, anyway).

23Nov

In Brief

In Brief Issue #892

Bar rejects “judging the judges” proposal

The Victorian Bar acted to defend the judicial officers of the State this week when the opposition announced a policy that, if implemented, would lead to the publication of statistics about the average sentence delivered per judicial officer for different offences, the number of sitting days per judicial officer, the delay per judgment per judicial officer, and other statistics supposedly aimed at measuring productivity and adherence to community standards in relation to sentencing.

16Nov

In Brief

In Brief Issue #891

Bar Council election results

The results of the Bar Council election were received by the outgoing Bar Council at 1pm yesterday, following which the newly elected Bar Council met for the first time and elected office-holders for the coming year.

9Nov

In Brief

In Brief Issue #890

New Victorian Bar CEO

Welcome to Katherine Lorenz, who started her new role as CEO of the Victorian Bar this week. Katherine comes to us with more than 16 years’ experience as a litigator at top tier law firms and in several high profile in-house roles, most recently as the Executive Director, Corporate Services and Governance and Chief Legal Officer with Monash Health. Please introduce yourself and make her feel welcome when you see her around the traps.

2Nov

In Brief

In Brief Issue #889

Victorian Bar supports judiciary

Last Friday the Australian Financial Review published a series of articles criticising the productivity of Federal Court judges based on a crude arithmetical methodology that divided the length of judgments delivered by the number of days that had elapsed between the reservation of judgment and the delivery of reasons, in order to produce a number supposedly representing the number of words and paragraphs generated per judge per day. The methodology only needs to be stated to be seen to be meaningless to the point of absurdity.

26Oct

In Brief

In Brief Issue #888

ABA Conference—now featuring an evening with Malcolm Turnbull

The ABA has secured the presence of former Prime Minister, the Hon Malcolm Turnbull, as Guest of Honour at the dinner to be held on Friday 16 November as part of its forthcoming national conference, rise2018, to be held in Sydney from 16–17 November. The former Prime Minister will not only give the after-dinner speech, but also subject himself to a Q&A session in a room full of advocates.

19Oct

In Brief

In Brief Issue #887

Wellbeing of the Victorian Bar survey results

Last night I presented the findings of the Bar’s first “Wellbeing of the Victorian Bar” survey to members. We were delighted to be joined by Chief Justice Ferguson at the briefing. The judiciary and the Bar are at one on the importance of good physical and mental health if we are all to achieve our potential. We all know that judges and counsel alike work in a high stress, high performance environment, and that we must work together, in partnership, to safeguard the efficient administration of justice.