Amid the figs and prosciutto Three Wigs Willy takes the judicial oath at Beppis … Big shot barristers and law firm partners in octopus mode as their tentacles lurch towards unsuspecting victims … The #AboutTime movement … Goings On with Theodora 

The beaks assembled at Beppis the famous Italian restaurant in East Sydney, not far from their chambers in William Street. 

The guest of honour was John (Tip Top) Pascoe, CJ of the Family Court, while Three Wigs Willy Alstergren, FCCA CJ, had come from Melbourne for the knees-up. 

Vast platters of zucchini flowers, prosciutto and figs, gnocchi with prawns and dead fish were being munched by the assembled judicial officers. Eventually, Pascoe begged silence and the gathering grew still, except for occasional noisy slurps of full-bodied Barbaresco. 

Tip Top, his cheek glistening with a few flecks of mayonnaise from a yummy asparagus stalk, proceeded to swear in Three Wigs as deputy chief justice of the Family Court. 

The new deputy chief justice of the Family Court took the judicial oath between the primo and the second courses witnessed by judges of an entirely different court. 

Absent were the usual throng of fawning advocates as well as leaders of the grill and the conveyancers’ association. 

Another age-old precedent has been swept aside. Henceforth, what is to stop judges of all stripes being anointed in beer halls, brothels and boudoirs? 

We asked on two occasions the spokesmodel for the Family Court and the Federal Circus Court for a comment before we went to press. 

There was silence, the reason being there is no plausible explanation for this bizzaro behaviour by Tip Top and Three Wigs. 

Onto to even more distressing matters. The circumstances surrounding #MeToo and #TimesUp situations is fraught. 

Justice Lucy McCallum in an interlocutory judgment in the McLachlan case also pointed to the “infinite complexity and ambiguity of sexual and sexualised behaviour“. 

The responses range from: 

“… people who would dismiss the most inappropriate and unacceptable conduct as being ‘only a joke’, to those of the champions of the #MeToo movement, to the French feminist response to that movement reflected in the statement of the famous French actor Catherine Deneuve.” 

Even more infuriating, alleged victims sue the alleged perpetrators after their claims have been subject to scathing attacks and denials. Stormy Daniels is the trail blazer in this area, followed by Laurie Dhue who is suing the sacked Fox News host Rampant Bill O’Reilly after he claimed that the harassment claims she made were “unfounded”. This is a after she received settlements arising from O’Reilly’s predatory behaviour. 

To publish fine details of the conduct of sleaze-bags opens a vortex of litigation. 

This is not to say that there is not plenty to write about, and as Justice McCallum put it there is a wide range of behaviour from the unacceptable to the so-what: 

There’s bound to be heaps more that can be entered into the lawyers #TimesUp hall of infamy. Do keep us in mind if you have any entrants, by using our “Blow the Whistle” box on Justinian’s home page. 

At least some of these Lotharios will know who they are and that we’re watching them.