President's message

30/01/2023

This week marks the Opening of Law Term and the resumption of Opening of Law Term church services and ceremonies, following their postponement last year due to the Omicron outbreak of COVID-19. A full list of the remaining services is available here.

I hope that you have all had a happy and healthy festive season and thank the many who have continued to work to ensure access to justice over the holiday period.

On behalf of the Bar, we congratulate the Chief Justice of the Federal Court of Australia, the Honourable James Leslie Allsop AC AO on the well-deserved award of the AC for his eminent service to the judiciary and to the law, to organisational and technological reform, to legal education, and to insolvency law on 26 January 2023 in the Australia Day Honours. His Honour is only the fourth person to have held the office since the Court’s inception in 1976 and has overseen the technological modernisation of the court while leading with unquestionable and exceptional intellect, integrity, compassion, fortitude and good humour over his term, not least guiding the Federal Court through the demands of the pandemic.

As the law term commences, I encourage the profession to not only attend diligently to the resumption of work commitments but also to ensure attendance at the many swearing-in ceremonies of those outstanding members of our profession who have accepted the responsibility of judicial appointment. The following events are imminent:

• Wednesday, 1 February 2023, Judge Richard Weinstein SC will be sworn in as a Justice of the Supreme Court;
• Thursday, 2 February 2023 Sarah Hopkins will be sworn in as a District Court Judge;
• Wednesday, 8 February 2023 Judge Deborah Sweeney will be sworn in as a Justice of the Supreme Court; and
• Thursday, 16 February 2023, Lara Gallagher will be sworn in as a District Court Judge.

This is in addition to the ceremonies for Gemma Slack-Smith, John Arms, Julie Zaki and Michael Maher who will all be sworn in as new magistrates on 6 February 2023, 7 February 2023, 8 February 2023 and 9 February 2023 respectively. The formal ceremony to mark the retirement of Justice Robert Macfarlan from the Court of Appeal will be held on Wednesday, 22 February 2023. I encourage you all to attend as many of these important occasions as are possible for you.

Friday, 3 February 2023 also marks the wonderful achievement of the commencement of Justice Adamson as a Judge of the NSW Court of Appeal.

On behalf of the Bar Council, I wish the profession all the best for the coming law term.

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