From: Hugh Marshall SC Subject: Bar Council Elections

Dear Colleagues, Your email privacy has no doubt been violated by unsolicited mail concerning the upcoming election for Bar Council, at which I have allowed my name to be put forward as a candidate for election. I apologise in advance for the addition of yet another plea for your vote. As the pre-eminent Common Law Chambers in Sydney, we have experienced the legislative incursions into our practices and the risible procedural obstacles involving costs obligations, more than most other sets of Chambers. We have endured those without much support, it seems to me, from the Bar Council. In recent time, many of you have questioned what, if anything, Bar Council has done to try to arrest the continuation of this trend. If the commissioning of child care centres and the support of knitting clubs is advancing the cause of the Common Law Bar, I have clearly overlooked the impact of these improvements. Like many of you, I have witnessed the politicisation of the Council and wondered what possible benefit there is to our practices, of press releases crowing moral outrage about matters of no conceivable nexus to what we do, or even to the broader practice of a Barrister. Now we are exhorted to vote for the ‘status quo ticket’, or the ‘neutrality ticket’, or the ‘QC or SC’ bloc, even the ‘unfounded assertions’ party. Wheelahan QC introduced some comic perspective by remembering that some years ago, even the ‘party party party Party’ achieved some 500 or so votes in a Federal election. For those of us who practice in the common law world, this election presents a bewildering collocation of candidates, some of whom would have difficulty identifying, let alone dealing with, some of the daily demons inflicted upon the common lawyer. Frankly, the impression I get, is that most of them wouldn’t care what happened to the Common Law Bar. Might I suggest that you look through the list of candidates, identify the common lawyers amongst them and make your selection from amongst their number. They are the only ones who can identify with the difficulties that the practice of the common law entails. For those of you that care what I think, or what policy I would support if I were elected, the following is a guideline: 1. I support Bennett QC’s views about the involvement of Bar Council, supposedly representing the NSW Bar Association, in the political affairs of the country. It shouldn’t.2. There should be greater transparency in the deliberations and decisions of Bar Council.3. The Government should be made aware just how difficult it is to practice as a common lawyer in this repressive legislative climate. As Ipp QC is reported to have conceded, the reformation of the common law went too far. It is time that process should be turned back.4. And incidentally, I still support the legislative change to permit the right of members of the inner bar to choose which post nominals they practice with. Whatever you do, at least vote!Kind Regards,Hugh