Five things all lawyers and law students will understand

Leaning into my learned elitism

In March I’ll begin my final semester as an undergraduate law student. The vast majority of my friends are (unfortunately for my hitherto salt-of-the-earth reputation) also law students. I read Lawyers’ Weekly with genuine interest. My favourite podcast is ‘William & Lonsdale: Lives in the Law’. I have a small intellectual crush on Justice Croucher. I bore people at dinner parties. At night I dream about things like the application of the implied duty of cooperation to call option deeds. Needless to say, I don’t think I am a very relatable person anymore.

But if there’s one thing I’ve learnt about the internet, it’s that there is always someone who will relate to you. With that in mind, I’ve compiled the following list of things that all lawyers and law students will understand. This is possibly my most niche content choice ever. If you are considering unsubscribing, you are probably right to do so, but just know that I have a completely hyperbolic, slightly mawkish article on the extremely contemporary ultra-fresh musical talent that is Joni Mitchell coming up. So maybe just consider this a palate cleanser.

(1) The appearance of the Bell Group litigation in a Lexis Advance search result is a portentous omen of doom for your research memo and also your career at large

Picture the scene. A harried Partner has called you into his (let’s not be quixotic - it’s never her) office at 4pm on a Friday. You have vague plans for the evening involving a dip in the cold plunge at Sense of Self in Collingwood, the sixth Harry Potter movie (wry, comedic genius) and the ready-made gnocchi from the IGA on Station Street.

“Maya,” says the Partner - barely looking up and inevitably pronouncing it ‘Maia’ - “I’ve just got a super quick urgent question I want you to look into.”

You feel the anticipation building in your stomach. You’ve been working in the industry long enough now to know that ‘super quick’ and ‘urgent task’ and ‘sixth Harry Potter movie on the couch by 8pm’ are about as compatible as Taylor Swift and Jake Gyllenhaal were long-term.

“Basically I just want you to see whether there are any cases considering the application of the doctrine of election in the context of a commercial lease where the breach involves negligence and the landlord has accepted rent but has otherwise been silent,” says the Partner, all in one breath. “Shouldn’t take too long, I reckon. I bet there a quite a few cases out there - seems obvious to me. Oh, and I’ll need a finished memo by tomorrow, counsel has to start submissions at 9am.”

Five minutes later, you take a deep breath and open up Lexis Advance. You pause to steady yourself and carefully select and enter a string of search terms. “Start broad, Maya,” you mutter to yourself. “Start broad, and we can narrow it down.” You press ‘enter’. You close your eyes for moment. You open them again and look up at the screen. You wince.

There it is. The second result, clear as day. Westpac Banking Corporation v Bell Group Ltd (in liq) (No 3). Tears sting your eyes. You message your family, making sure your tone accurately reflects the visceral feeling of doom in your stomach. “Hi Mum - I might not make it to brunch tomorrow. I’ve just been given a near impossible research task and I’m going to probably have to rely on English cases on ICLR from the 18th Century. Love you!”

(2) Court book trolleys are nefarious beasts that should be banished to the fiery pits of hell

There’s a sick irony in the accepted fact that the smallest and weakest member of any legal team will almost always be the one pushing the court book trolley. For any person who has not gone through the ORDEAL of trying to frantically navigate the mean streets of the Melbourne legal district with one of these, highlighters falling through the holes in the back (why do they have holes?! Why would a trolley designed to carry books ever need holes?!), every bump causing a kind of small-scale natural disaster … I would ask that you please refrain from complaining about hardship in front of me ever again. It doesn’t help that you’ll inevitably be trying to keep up with a barrister walking so fast their robes will kind of sweep behind them in a way that makes them resemble a dementor (do they do that on purpose?). I haven’t even mentioned the time I had to get lifted into the Court of Appeal’s Red Court via an outdoor trade elevator because I couldn’t get the trolley up the stairs. My therapist has advised me to avoid reliving that memory if I can help it.

(3) The Kirby J to Bret Walker idolisation pipeline is rarely discussed but extremely real

Every first to third year law student reads Kirby’s essay on judicial activism and basically has an intellectual orgasm. I can still recite by heart those culminant lines: “in that plane we ask not whether there is judicial activism. Of course there is. It is the very essence of the brilliant system of law that the ancient English judges developed…” Kirby J articulates and epitomises the romanticism of the young idealistic law student. I still feel a shiver of pleasure whenever I hear him discoursing on his innovative approach to law reform.

But then I got older and went into professional practice and became cynical and jaded. All utopianism left my body. I learned the dance to the song ‘Don’t Be A Lawyer’ from Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and I nodded solemnly and sagely to myself as Charles Dickens lamented the legal system’s interminable ‘Wiglomerations’ in Bleak House. I needed a new idol.

Then one day I happened to read O’Meara J’s speech at the 2023 VicBar Reader’s dinner. In it, he describes BW Walker as a “True Great of the Sydney Bar”. I thought back to the time I (briefly) met Bret Walker. He spent half a day preparing to advocate, in the High Court, in relation to a complicated insolvency matter I’d spent around 6 months getting my head around. He also used the word ‘labyrinthine’ casually in a conversational sentence. I realised, in a moment of epiphanic shock, that Brett Walker is a legend of almost mythological proportions.

Rumour has it that Bret travels to Canberra with a custom-made suitcase, complete with internal moulding perfectly sized to fit hard copy volumes of the CLR or NSWLR. Statistics tell me Bret appeared in the High Court over 35 times in 2022. I’ve become so obsessed with him that I’ve started to craft a narrative around him in my imagination. In my head he has his own special bedroom in some dark recess of the High Court underground carpark and never leaves. In my head he only eats raw fish and other food calculated to increase brain activity. In my head he’s memorised every Philip Larkin poem to heart.

[I hope he never reads this].

(4) Law school warps your vocabulary in a way that is profoundly embarrassing

Before I started law school I’d spent a year reading queer literary criticism and had an appropriately advanced, slightly flamboyant academic vocabulary. For example, I liked using words like ‘insidious’ and ‘quintessence’. Then I started Foundations of Law with Amber Tan and any talent for creative prose was ruthlessly and relentlessly quashed out of me. “No superfluous words here!” Amber would declare with barely suppressed glee as she imposed another absurdly small, draconian, dogmatically-enforced word limit, ignoring the fact that the word ‘superfluous’ makes no sense and kind of sounds like a sneeze. The prevalence of Amber Tan inspired word counts throughout law school, coupled with the fact that I spent five years reading cases from the early 17th Century, means I now can’t understand most VCE level literature essays but regularly use the following expressions:

• “moral obloquy” (“moral turpitude” also works as a good alternative).

• “de minimis” (as in a very small breach of contract. Or as in the size of the penises of the men who tailgate me).

• “impecunious” (as in a very poor person. Frequently used by my colleagues at work to describe me).

• “contumacious disregard” (as in the attitude of every law firm Partner ever towards my sleep schedule and mental health).

(5) The Aussie Corporate is a modern-day Joan Didion

Last year I experienced firsthand the perfervid, dog-eat-dog hellscape that is penultimate year clerkship applications. One thing got me through: theaussiecorporate.com and its oddly cerebral, puckish descriptions of top-tier law firms’ internal politics. I want to be best friends with whoever is doing the copy for this page. Below are just a few examples (with the names of the impugned firms removed because I do not want to get sued for defamation and I have read the decision in Fairfax Media Publications Pty Ltd & Ors v Voller [2021] HCA 27. The Aussie Corporate may be willing to make sacrifices in the name of freedom of information but I still need to get admitted to practice). Joan Didion could never.

• On an unnamed international top-tier: “The only firm in the Australian market in bed with a magic circle firm, the mighty and prestigious juggernaut, [Y]. Whilst it is obvious this alliance exists when looking at the [X] logo, the obviously missing “[X]” piece from the [Y] logo begs a few questions. Despite the apparent power imbalance in the relationship, don’t take anything away from this dynamo firm itself.”

• On an unnamed upper mid-tier: “[X] is the flashy, hip kid on the Australian legal market block synonymous with exciting buzzwords like “innovation”, “tech-savvy” and “transformative”. For example, [X]’s invested time and resources to develop a due diligence program called dd – we have no idea how good it is, but hey, its the thought that counts.”

• On another unnamed top-tier: “[X] is an independent Australian law firm, infamously known for the role that it played in McCabe v British American Tobacco Australia, a case that graces the corporate law textbooks of aspiring lawyers in university. Trust us, you’ll want to look this one up.”