Vale Clockface Gunson … Heavy duty functions organiser at the SA Bar … ALRC moves to Brisneyland … Game on for family court restructure … Hungry Yarraside silks … Federal Court footnote 

Military man and litigator about town, Gunson was also someone who attracted strongly divided opinions. 

He first came to have a minor starring role in Justinian’s dispatches in 1989, when he was sued by solicitor Garry Howes for assault and defamation – the result of a booze filled evening at the Tasmanian Club in Hobart. 

Bill “Silver Tray” Gillard from Melbourne appeared for Howes and laboured to get much out of the defendant, who claimed he was too drunk to remember anything. Bill Zeeman acted for Clockface. 

Shortly after, someone in the profession found a photo of Gunson, smiling – an unusual event. A local practitioner with skills in dismantling and reassembling timepieces secretly manufactured a Gunson clock, with the great man’s attempted smile pasted on the dial. 

Peter Lyons, a Hobart lawyer, now Professor Lyons teaching advocacy in Europe and the UK, tells the clock story in his brilliant limited-edition book, Not One Jot.

“A Launceston lawyer proceeded to mass produce them like Daleks. The word raced around the legal profession … [Very soon] Bill Zeeman ashtrays and Guy Green stubby holders” were in also production. 

The Zeeman ashtrays were a big hit, with His Honour’s face peering through piles of stubbed cigarettes.

The clocks were handed out to graduates of the law practice course. John Kable had one, various judges, including Hollywood Pete Underwood, kept them in their chambers. 

At a dinner to mark Gunson’s retirement as a lawyer, select guests were discretely wearing wristwatches bearing his grimacing face on the dial – a keepsake of a mighty footsoldier who served in the cause of law and order. 

Son-and-heir Chris Gunson, president of the Tasmanian Bar ‘n’ Grill, pressed for the abolition of wigs in criminal trials – alas, it hasn’t happened. 

In a circular to members of the trade in Tasmania, Supreme Court registrar J.A. Connolly advised that from Monday, November 19:

“… the judges will wear modern red and black gowns in criminal trials and appeals instead of the traditional black gowns. Wigs and other robes will continue to be worn. Black robes will continue to be worn without wigs in civil matters.” 

Victoria and WA trail blazed with their Supreme Courts dispensing with wigs all together. 

It’s always difficult to see what’s going on at the South Australian bar ‘n’ grill, but peering into the gloom we see that Daniella Di Girolamo has departed from the council as well as chair of the membership services committee, which organises the annual dinners and knees-up with the judges. 

She done this quite demanding job for two years and apparently wanted to devote her time to other things. 

Daniella replaced Shane Spence when she resigned from the council and from the chair of the membership services committee. 

Is there a pattern here? Some women, but not all, have reported difficult experiences with the chaps on the bar council. 

We heard reports that one of the rank and file suggested the bar create a gender and diversity committee, however the bigwigs thought that those sort of feel-good functions could easily be handled by the Women at the Bar Committee, because they “are all the same thing”. 

You had to grind you way to the bottom of a government press release about moving the headquarters of the Australian Maritime Safety Authority to Coffs Harbour before you discovered that the Australian Law Reform Commission was being shifted from Sydney to Brisbane. 

Incredible. Michael McCormack, Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development, put out a verbose announcement about how the government was sprinkling maritime safety jobs around the regions, and there at the bottom we found … 

“… the Australian Law Reform Commission is moving their operations from Sydney to Brisbane as a result of their lease expiring. The ALRC undertakes research and provides recommendations to modernise, improve, simplify and improve access to the law.” 

Since when was the Leader of Cockies Corner making announcements about the ALRC and since when did Brisneyland become a “regional centre”?

It must be entirely coincidental that the president of the commission “Justice” Sarah Derrington, herself a Banana Bender, is headquartered in Brisbane. 

She was given a Federal Court judicial appointment and handpicked for the ALRC job by Soapy Brandis. She is a former academic and dean of the law school at the University of Queensland and her hubby, Roger Derrington, is also a judge of the Federal Court. 

Until now “Justice” S. Derrington has been renting digs in Sydney and commuting between Brisbane and Sydney since her appointment in November 2017. 

In the meantime, it has been an ever-diminishing experience for the law reform commission. Earlier this year half the staff were made redundant and its administrative operations moved into the AG’s department. 

It’s most recent report which dealt with Indigenous incarceration has been ignored by the govermment, Prof Helen Rhoades from Melbourne Uni has left the family law inquiry due to ill-health while the inquiry into litigation funding plugs on. 

The government is barging ahead with its family law “reforms” even before it has recommendations from the ALRC’s reference. 

Currently, Derrington is the only full time commissioner, while there are four part-timers. 

The ALRC’s work has been significantly ignored, it’s independence eaten away and it’s resources depleted – in keeping with the way this government treats other independent agencies. 

On the legislation dealing with the family courts structural issues there have been some vocal protestations. 

The legislation to fuse the Family Court and the Circus Court passed the House on Tuesday (Nov. 27) and is now in the maw of the Unrepresentative Swill. 

In the meantime, the senate legal and constitutional affairs committee is plodding trough the legislation with an April 15, 2019 reporting deadline. 

The frenetic determination of attorney general “Christian” Porter is to have a debate on the Bills, before the senate committee and the ALRC have reported and made their recommendations – another instance of Canberra’s inanity. 

Governor Game from the NSW bar ‘n’ grill, even though he’s not frequently seen in the family law courts, said: 

“Many of the Bills’ purported goals, such as the reduction of delays and achieving efficiencies within the family law system could be achieved without legislation through the creation of consistent court rules … and through a significant funding and resource commitment from government into the family law system and legal aid.” 

The Law Council also chimed in, contradicting Porter’s boosterism that the proposed changes will produce efficiencies and reduce delays and costs and are all properly funded by the government.  

The LCA said while the Bills should be delayed the move to a single point of entry for family law cases, harmonisation of the rules and unification of procedures “should be implemented without further delay by the relevant heads of jurisdiction”, aka Two Wigs Willy. 

Vic’s Bar ‘n’ Grill announced a bumper crop of silks for 2018. Twenty-five in all, including seven women (28%). 

A month earlier, the NSW bar unveiled it’s new silkies, a disappointing total number of 19 with only four female elevations (21%). 

It’s puzzling, because Yarraside big-wigs are grumbling about the miserable condition of the trade and associated troubles keeping their Porsches on the road and the tots boarding at St Brutes. 

Conspiracy theorists say that large crop of appointments is a clever move to flood the ranks of the bar with starving QCs and to crash the market for new entrants. 

It was comforting to find some extra curial thinking at the foot of a Full Feds judgment in a bankruptcy appeal, Coshott v Max Prentice – starring members of the litigation prone Coshott clan. 

Duncan Colquhoun Kerr, Kathleen Farrell and Jacqueline Gleeson JJ dismissed the appeal, saying that costs will follow the event. 

And there at the end of the reasons was this off-the-record comment from Jacqueline, published to the world: 

“Kathleen and Duncan, it would be more obiter to go on to the question of offsetting claims arising after the date of the application. My view is that we should not be canvassing the issue where there is no utility (especially where the appeal was not particularly well argued).”  

As it turned out the appeal was argued by A.P. Cheshire SC with Mr O. Jones for the appellant and J.T. Johnson for the respondent. 

Someone must have alerted the court to this slice of private commentary because it is now been chiselled from the record, but not before Theodora snatched a screenshot.