NSW bar … Covid creates a different world for barristers … Can it ever be the same again? … Clinging on … The chambers model’s uncertain future … Expenses trimmed … Curate’s egg … Some parts thriving … Younger briefs need helping hands … JJJ hearings 

When he went into chambers this week, he was the only one there all day. 

It’s a desert in Phillip Street and surrounds. It means the collegiality and open door policy that sustained younger barristers, in particular, has vanished. The readers’ course is still functioning, but is entirely online – no interaction, little engagement. 

For relatively fresh-faced barristers the financial consequences are disheartening. There have been some concerted efforts to feed work to recent bar entrants and for juniors to make appearances with silks, even when a junior is not really required. 

It is infinitely harder to build a practice without a communal chamber’s life. People working from home are wondering whether they can sustain expensive bolt holes in the city, particularly as there are reports that solicitors are slower than ever to pay.  

One senior clerk told Justinian that some chambers are now sharing rooms to help mitigate costs and there’s been an increased demand for door tenancies. 

In Victoria there was a mutiny as some refused to pay their chambers’ rent. Because BCL is owned by Vic’s Bar negotiations resulted in difficult circumstances being “facilitated”. 

In Sydney some sets have been able to negotiate rent free periods and rebates, with government assistance. 

The implications for the chambers model are still to be worked through – although it is unlikely to emerge unscathed from Covid. 

Meanwhile, the machinery of the bar is being well-supported by clerks and floor staff who are flat out beetling around town delivering and collecting documents – although some say they are struggling and finding the constraints taxing. 

The nabobs of the NSW bar recently met with 60 heads of chambers, to discuss how best to keep the pistons pumping. It seems to be a matter for individual sets of chambers whether members can return if they are fully vaccinated. 

Because jury trials have been closed down, the strain has mostly been born by criminal barristers. “Criminal trials fell off a cliff,” McHugh says. Juries won’t be back in the District Court until October 25, although pre-trial applications are being heard along with criminal appeals by AVL, albeit with visuals that miss out on individual judicial close-ups and facial expressions. 

McHugh adds that the “commercial bar is busier than ever” while other civil trials in the state and federal court are running remotely without much let-up. These proceedings are referred to as JJJ hearings – Just Jabot & Jacket. 

McHugh is confident that his members will get through this. “The bar has great resilience,” he told Justinian, maybe with a few fingers crossed behind his back. 

Oddly enough, there has not been a rush on the benevolent fund – only a few applications, which is nothing out of the ordinary. 

To manage expectations of greater than usual need for the services of Bar Care, a fortnightly Zoom webinar called Safe Place has been created, where members can turn off the camera and anonymously discuss, with wellbeing person Jenny Houen, their stresses, strains, and mental health delicacies.  

The NSW bar’s annual report is just out, where president McHugh acknowledges that the changes to working life wrought by Covid and the lockdowns are unlikely to be unravelled anytime soon: 

“Of course, with the experience of 2020, quickly transitioning to an online system and remote working was far less daunting a prospect had we not all experienced the first lockdown. Yet, the profession has been fundamentally altered.”