There have been crisis discussions at Vic’s Bar ‘n’ Grill as the top brass go toe-to-toe on a proposal to invest in a childcare centre. 

Anne Ferguson, the chief justice of Victoria, has squirrelled away $600,000 in fees paid by silk applicants, and now she wants to give the money back to a worthy project supported by the bar council. 

This has prompted a schism in the ranks, with most of the governing body proposing that at least $400,000 be allocated to Barristers Chambers Ltd for a childcare centre and the balance to fund a readers’ course scholarship. 

This was all too woke for the hardliners, with an email doing the rounds resisting the majority’s proposal. It was signed by bar councillors: Gavin Silbert KC, Peter Chadwick KC, Mark Robins KC, Darryl Burnett, Lana Collaris and Andrea Skinner. 

This neoliberal faction is pressing for the money to be returned, either to members who forked-up for the silk application fees; or to reduce member subscription fees; or to send it all to the Barristers Benevolent Fund of Victoria. 

The other 15 on the council voted down the proposal to ask the CJ to send it to the BBFV. 

The anti-childcare rump are concerned about the cost of a playground for barristers’ spawn. “Back of the envelope” figures put the fit-out at between $1 million-$1.7 million – and there’s no “business case”, let alone analysis of the likely demand for the facility. 

The NO campaigners had other ammo in their armoury:  

The centre would be located where “convicted criminals including child sex offenders” would be visiting their briefs. 

Further, and more alarming, there may be a “non-delegable duty of care owed by the landlord”; what if a child is injured at the centre; or is injured in Owen Dixon Chambers West on the way to and from the playground; what is the cost of the insurance premium; will barristers owe a duty of care personally if “something was to happen involving a client in circumstances where the barrister knows a childcare centre is on the site”? 

The possible disasters will have most lawyers snacking their chops. 

The proposal for a scholarship is also unacceptable to the rump councillors because it “will not have a broad enough beneficial effect on the whole of the bar or at least a substantial portion of it”. 

Vic’s bar has about $3.5 million in the bank and $6.8 million in investments managed by J.B Were and, to make matters ever more insufferable, Barristers Chambers Ltd is to charge penalty interest on overdue accounts from July 1, 2024. 

Lana Collaris, one of the six No childcare campaigners, shot to fame last October over her opposition to proposed changes to the bar’s constitution to promote diversity and address discrimination and unlawful harassment.

Channelling Janet Albrechtsen, Lana declared the proposals “are underpinned by the political philosophy of victimhood and the imagined spectre of ‘white male patriarchy’.” 

Needless to say, she also wanted the bar to stay silent on the question of the Voice. 

Now that the “Silks’ Fund” email has gone to the rank and file the real fun can begin.