Medical negligence case sees extraordinary pre-trial bill … Solicitor-client costs … Compromised settlement before trial … Judge asks for details … Trustee to look carefully … Plus news from WA on judge deciding a case on grounds that had not been pleaded … Court in the Act 

High Court’s work rate … Productivity drops in recent years … Annual report … Hefty expenditures on “workplace issues” … Interesting items of expenditure … From our High Court watcher Misty Malone 

Worldly Salvatore Vasta delves into the rich crevices of the English language … Special translation confined to an appendix … Boggo Road drama … Insults … Pete, Pete pumpkin eater … Special from the FCFC 

Up the Street … Bend over … FCFC judge birched (again) by the Federal Court … More interruptions …Taking over the case … Findings that were not made in submissions … Go back start again … Costly and inefficient process … Judicial mentoring goes astray … Max Shanahan reports

NSW government goes softly-softly on anti-corruption … AG from a crooked era nominated for chief commissioner … South Australian magistrate loses conduct appeal … Red wine snifters to raise funds for Queensland legal aid … President of Vic Appeals hangs up his wig with a shot at mandatory sentencing … Theodora reports 

Bollicking for large law shop over “independent” witness report … Drafting assisted by lawyers … Breach of expert witness code of conduct … Law firm knew in advance what the findings would be … Misleading the court … Max Shanahan files 

Deficiencies of heavy-handed anti-terror laws … Police mismanagement and failure to comply … Covert search warrants … Preventative detention orders … Major shake up for continuing detention orders … Citizenship stripping laws get scrambled … Max Shanahan dives into the quagmire  

Dire legal aid conditions bring on strikes by criminal briefs in the Old Dart … Barristers reporting incomes below the minimum wage … Delays in payments … Massive exodus from the profession … Magic Circle firms booming and bloated, while criminal justice practitioners go into debt … Misconduct charges threatened by the LCJ … The decay in legal aid outlined by Max Shanahan