Dear Furies, you might be the wrong person to ask, but is the Bar Council too woke? Shouldn’t it be representing the whole of the Bar, including those of us who do not support the Voice which just seems to be an empty symbol? And while I am at it, it seems to me that changing the light bulbs in chambers and using paper recycling is going to make no difference to climate change beyond virtue signalling. Why bother?

‘You might be the wrong person to ask’, you say. The wrong ‘person’? Singular? Puh-lease! Not only are we not a ‘person’, but if you are going to woke-shame us by association with other minor deities,¹ please do so with our correct pronouns which are, and always have been, ‘they’ and ‘them’ even if our email sign-off presently neglects to say so.

But, we digress.

The Voice. Climate Change. We hear you. We see you. Your views are important and we respect you engaging with these issues. But what is this railing against symbols and the signalling of virtues? We only ask, because, you see, symbols can be very powerful.

Not long ago, we were treated to a particularly engaging reunion special of ‘Downton Abbey’ where the assembled cast (minus the downstairs crew) converged upon Westminster Abbey for a coronation complete with quiche. In our view, too much airtime was spent on the support cast (largely non-speaking roles, lots of ermine) although we were much taken with one fetching blonde extra sporting a sword and Brienne of Tarth vibes. As far as symbols go, it was a pretty powerful display.

But you are right, symbols can be empty. Unless they are invested with meaning through shared beliefs or shared truths, they are nothing. And here we come to the nub of it.

Do we have shared beliefs? Do we have shared truths?

To accept individual responsibility for reducing consumption, you might first have to accept the truth that, without action, our world is sliding towards large scale environmental catastrophe. To accept that a step in reconciliation, like the Voice, is necessary, you might first have to accept the truth that First Nations peoples were the custodians of this land for over 60,000 years before many were systematically and violently displaced by European settlement. This is all very hard and difficult and the people who keep bringing up these things are just so earnest and annoying. Luckily, you have at your disposal a word² of such unparalleled power that upon its single utterance, it immediately renders all those earnest and annoying people mute and all the annoying things they say untrue.

But again, we digress. Now where were we? We were discussing something terribly important…

That’s right, we were talking about ‘Downton Abbey.’ Seriously, ‘Succession’ has nothing on that family’s dynamics. We cannot wait to see how it all turns out in the next reunion special. But we can happily report that the next episode is already in pre-production and from the leaked footage, it promises to be an absolute corker.

Chambers is having what seems to be its almost-annual website upgrade. Our clerk wants every member to have their curriculum vitae accessible on the site to entice new work. Looking at other colleagues’ CVs online some only highlight ‘recent cases’ or ‘cases of note’, some only highlight their wins, while some include every case without mentioning the outcome so that they look super busy. Which approach should I adopt and should I mention the two weeks’ work experience I did at radio station 2DU in Dubbo 30 years ago?

We confess that we really hate this part of the job. It is one of the main reasons we left our previous place of employment in a law firm. If we had our way, all barristers would have the following words printed on their lintel regardless of seniority or practice area:

‘Barrister. Will work, but not work for free. Conditions apply.’

Or if one must employ the more seductive arts to solicit a solicitor, perhaps the following might work:

‘If you like pina coladas, and getting caught in the rain, then brief another barrister who does not mind having wet inebriated solicitors turn up to their chambers unannounced.’

As you can see, we are really not the best minor deities to ask about this issue.

We think your CV should reflect you and what you value. If you are restrained and select about your achievements, then perhaps you might entice briefs from similarly minded solicitors, presuming they exist. If you like alternate fonts in bold and indiscriminate use of full caps, then you will find your people.

But can we caution against lengthy CVs with outdated information? Even before mobile phones reduced everyone’s attention span to nanoseconds, we were advised that a CV beyond three pages was a waste of time and that one to two pages was probably best. In short, you are probably not best served by throwing in every matter or case you have ever worked on from the time you were made a solicitor or by referring to your work experience at Radio 2DU 30 years ago. That is, not unless the work was a particular professional highlight. Like a seminal case in your practice area, or a successful High Court appeal, or you were the one, the actual one, who announced to the good denizens of Dubbo the happy news that the Dubbo Demons had been awarded the 1994 AFL Central West minor premiership. Go the Demons! BN

^ENDNOTES

^{1 By which we mean Bar Council.}

^{2 By which we mean ‘woke’.}