Inbrief

And for those of wishing to organise your diaries and your reading schedules; for May’s meeting, we will be reading the soon to be released (2 March) Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguo.

We welcome new members and there will be refreshments provided. Any questions, please email library@nswbar.asn.au

All enquiries will be dealt with in the strictest confidence.

For more information about the floor, please visit www.denmanchambers.com.au

Join presenters, Kristina Stern SC, Jason Downing SC, Kirsten Edwards and Hugh Dillon for this facilitated panel discussion targeted towards assisting barristers who are undertaking advocacy in inquisitorial jurisdictions (i.e. coronial inquests, royal commissions, special commissions of inquiry) develop their skills. Areas to be canvassed include the role and function of counsel assisting, key considerations for representing interested parties, and tips for persuasive advocacy and otherwise (aka – what not to do!). Donna Ward will chair this webinar.

This webinar is open to NSW Bar Association members and will be run by registration only. Numbers are limited. For further information, or to register for this event, please click here.

This seminar has been organised by the NSW Bar Association Inquest & Inquiries Committee.

Registrations are open to NSW barristers currently holding a practising certificate and places in the program are strictly limited.

The Family Court of Australia 2.0 model put forward by the Association in July 2018 as an alternative to the merger remains the model preferred by more than 155 individuals and organisations who work in the family law system serving families and children.

Unlike the Family Court of Australia 2.0 model, the Government’s merger will have the effect of abolishing a stand-alone specialist Family Court as we know it, collapsing it into the under-resourced and over-worked Federal Circuit Court.

In proposing the 2.0 model, the Association said that there was a “pressing need for a national discussion about the future of family law in Australia” and a “national conversation about the benefits of preserving a specialist family court in Australia”.

In the course of parliamentary debate on the 2019 merger bill, the Association’s 2.0 model was referred to on more than 30 occasions in the House of Representatives and the Senate.

While the Association is disappointed with the outcome of the vote, we are proud to have made an important contribution to informing this critical public discussion and advocating for the best interests of Australian children, families and victims of family violence. We will continue to do so.

As stakeholders said last week, the interests of families and children have always been at the heart of the legal profession’s advocacy on this critical issue and we will continue to do whatever is possible to support the new Court in the delivery of justice to Australian children and families.

The Association said in 2018 that the Family Court could not be a gold star institution without “proper funding and resource commitment from government”. Regrettably, the merger bill was not accompanied by any additional funding for many states and territories, including NSW.

This is despite the fact that even before the COVID-19 pandemic, the Family Court and Federal Circuit Court were each already facing backlogs of more than a year’s worth of cases.

As at November 2020, five Federal Circuit Court Judges in the Sydney registry had between 300 to 400 cases each in their dockets. Another Sydney-based Federal Circuit Court Judge and three Federal Circuit Court Judges at the Parramatta Registry had between 400-500 cases in their dockets. One further Judge in the Parramatta Registry is currently not sitting. The single Federal Circuit Court Judge in the Wollongong registry had more than 600 cases in their docket and has not been replaced since being elevated to the Family Court. The Chief Judge of the Federal Circuit Court, as his Honour then was, had suggested some years ago that reforms to reduce the number of cases to something like 100 cases per judge would be needed to significantly reduce delays. Regrettably, that has not occurred and these reforms will not do so.

More than 10 Judges across the Family Court and Federal Circuit Court nationally will be retiring in 2021-22. It is critical that these appointments are promptly replaced to avoid contributing to further delays for parties.

The single most significant driver of legal costs in family law is delay in having matters proceed through the courts and this will be compounded by the merger. The Association will continue to work with stakeholders to advocate for proper resourcing of the NSW registries in a system that has been neglected for more than a decade.

The spectre of personal costs orders against legal practitioners strikes fear in the heart of all but the very brave or foolhardy.

Join Matt Karam, Katherine Oldfield and chair, Mark Walsh SC, to consider the statutory and inherent powers to make a personal costs order against a lawyer in NSW, their formal requirements and relevant evidentiary, procedural and practical considerations. The presenters will also review developments in practice that present particular risks for practitioners and survey recent decisions to identify conduct that is (or is not) attracting a personal costs order.

This webinar is open to NSW Bar Association members and will be run by registration only. Numbers are limited. For further information, or to register for this event, please click here.

This seminar has been organised by the NSW Bar Association’s Costs and Fees Committee.

• A new COVID-19 Procedures Update from the Industrial Relations Commission of NSW; and

• e-bulletin No 115 - February 2021 from the President of the Workers Compensation Commission of NSW.

Members are advised that, although the Bar Association is regularly updating the COVID-19 page of its website as information comes to hand, please refer to the latest court resources directly as developments are changing quickly at this time. Do not make any assumptions regarding your case without first doing so. Links to the various court and tribunal pages are provided in the body of the guide.

The conferences are run by registration only, and places in each conference are strictly limited. To register and pay to secure your place, please click on any of the “Register Now” buttons located on the dedicated 2021 Regional Conference Series website. If you do not receive a confirmation after booking please notify events@nswbar.asn.au as soon as possible.

For any questions about CPD requirements, conferences or the general CPD program, please contact the Professional Development Department on 02 9232 4919 or via email

The safety of our delegates, speakers, and staff is the NSW Bar Associations top priority. There will be a range of protocols and enhanced hygiene measures implemented throughout the venue and event format to safeguard the health and wellbeing of our guests.

Join presenters, Kristina Stern SC, Jason Downing SC, Kirsten Edwards and Hugh Dillon for this facilitated panel discussion targeted towards assisting barristers who are undertaking advocacy in inquisitorial jurisdictions (i.e. coronial inquests, royal commissions, special commissions of inquiry) develop their skills. Areas to be canvassed include the role and function of counsel assisting, key considerations for representing interested parties, and tips for persuasive advocacy and otherwise (aka – what not to do!). Donna Ward will chair this webinar.

This webinar is open to NSW Bar Association members and will be run by registration only. Numbers are limited. For further information, or to register for this event, please click here.

This seminar has been organised by the NSW Bar Association Inquest & Inquiries Committee.

Registrations are open to NSW barristers currently holding a practising certificate and places in the program are strictly limited.

"Movement", on Thursday, 18 February 2021, will be presented by Josephine Key, an author, mentor and practising neuromuscular-skeletal physiotherapist. Josephine has over 40 years of clinical experience and 30 years as the principal physiotherapist at Edgecliff Physiotherapy Sports and Spinal Centre. Her passion for bodies, their optimal function and how dysfunction drives pain states, underpins her work.

Josephine’s treatment approach distils the complex academic evidence, but enhances it with practical approaches inspired from multiple eastern and western manual and movement disciplines. She has refined this knowledge and developed a simple classification system which can be used to guide treatment approaches – The Key Approach. This is explained in her book: Back Pain: A Movement Problem. Josephine has a particular interest in the nature of movement – understanding what constitutes natural healthy control and the relationship between altered axial posturomovement control and many pain disorders – in particular those relating to the spine.

Attendance will attract 1 CPD point in the Practice Management and Business Skills strand.

The Wellbeing Committee has a charter to encourage barristers to live a balanced and healthy lifestyle. It facilitates a range of organised sporting, social and recreational activities. For more information, visit the Wellbeing pages of the Bar Association's website.