This page is to try and assist legal practitioners briefing me.

Legal Aid
ICL matters now form a significant part of my practice. I encourage any ICL looking for counsel to contact me.  I may consider legal aid for a party or s102NA briefs subject to my availability at short notice. I accept legal aid in the Federal Circuit and Family Court only.

Local Courts
I’m happy to attend any Local Court in the Hunter and Central Coast regions (and have done so many times in the past). I will go further afield in appropriate cases, so please ask.

AVO matters
See above. Generally speaking I can be of more help in the parenting matter if I’m closely familiar with any related family violence proceedings. It also cuts down preparation costs.

Conferences
At your request. I like videoconferences (Zoom is my preference) and can accommodate in person in chambers. It is usual for me to meet with any legally-aided client at court between 9:00 and 9:30am on the morning of a hearing if no other arrangements have been made.

Uninstructed appearances
Depends on the complexity of the matter (and nature of the client), but generally happy to do so.

Tender Bundles
Absolutely yes, and as early as you can possibly manage!

A Brief Fantasy (or, “How do you want your documents?”)
[EDIT (10/2021): Coming back to this entry more than ten years after I originally wrote it makes me think how quaint some of it seems now! However, the principles remain the same, even if the technology is now much more widely appreciated, used, and increasingly mandatory. For younger practitioners, please accept my apologies. There was a time when people didn’t know this stuff.]

This is my attempt at describing my document ideals. These are not requirements, just aspirations. I strongly prefer to receive as many documents as possible electronically. I have run a paperless practice for many years now, and I think I can confidently claim to have been the first paperless barrister in the Newcastle and Hunter Region (at least). It saves me a great deal of time if I don’t have to scan paper documents before I start.

I don’t need or want hard copies, provided you have them at the hearing (mainly for the purpose of handing to a witness during cross-examination).

In an ideal world, your brief documents will be:

• In PDF format

(unless you want me to settle or edit it, in which case Word format please). Would you please send me a copy of your proposed minute of order in Word format! This saves an astonishing amount of time at the hearing.

• Unprotected

There’s nothing more frustrating than a beautifully scanned set of PDFs, which I have to fight with because there’s some form of impenetrable security applied preventing me from annotating the documents.

• Scanned at a reasonable resolution, in black and white or greyscale if necessary, with the exception of annexures like photos which will be in colour.

I interpret “reasonable resolution” to be 300dpi. I don’t especially want files that are too massive to email around if necessary, but even more I don’t want files that are 100k in size and unreadable without giving me a headache because they’ve been downsampled beyond all recognition.

Now that things are mostly e-filed, this is less of a problem than it used to be. Just forward me the file/s you download from the portal and all should be well.

• Not be multiple documents contained in a single PDF.

I know that e-briefing software often likes to spit out a single massive PDF with every document in the brief, paginated, indexed, etc. Please don’t do that if possible. I prefer each document in a separate PDF.

• Not be sent by e-mail if it’s *really* huge

I have seen enough government department records and tender bundles (hello DCJ!) to know that some things cannot be conveniently e-mailed no matter how carefully and properly they are digitized.

A good option is a cloud service such as Dropbox, or one of the increasingly popular e-brief document sharing services. Generally speaking, I can handle whatever you throw at me, so go with your favourite.

I use Dropbox file requests. Ask me and I’ll email you a link which you can use to upload straight to my Dropbox without any file size hassles at all and without having to sign up to anything.

• Be identifiably named.

Use any scheme you like, but I really prefer one that gives me some clue to what the document is before I open it. “34556336.pdf” is not terribly informative, but if that’s what LEAP or whatever produces, so be it (sigh).

My own naming scheme is something like: “2012-08-11 – f. aff Fred Nerk.pdf”, where the date is the date of filing (hence the “f”) or swearing, or dating, etc, I know it’s an affidavit (“aff”) ,and I know whose affidavit it is. The date is in that format (year-month-day) because it sorts properly, and puts itself into chronological order. It also happens to be the ISO standard for numeric dates. If it helps, feel free to use it. If it’s a hassle, don’t.

Whatever format of numeric dates you use PLEASE use eight digits. That is, use “01.02.2025”, and not “1.2.25” or “1.12.2025”. Use the zeros in days and months! All of them!

See also the dot point for “Organized in any logical order” below.

• Include the orders.

Would you please include in my brief copies of all previous orders in the matter.  All of them, including the boring administrative ones, plus any previous Final Orders between the parties if they are frequent flyers.

• Not contain administrative documents unless really necessary.

I don’t need copies of whole subpoenas, your requests to inspect them, your notices of address for service, etc. It’s often helpful to have a list of people to whom subpoenas have been issued, and a short description of what you’ve subpoenaed (e.g. “Medical records for Chad Father, DOB…”), or the page listing the documents you have sought, but copying me the whole subpoena (or whatever) is really a waste of your time, because absent some truly amazing circumstance, I’m going to ignore it.

• Include any interim case outlines and tender bundles

If there has been a defended interim, that material can be useful in giving me a heads-up while I wait for the final tender bundle (which will inevitably be late, knocking on to my doing a case outline, which I strongly prefer to do only after I have all the relevant subpoena material).

If it’s on paper, I’d love it if it were:

• NOT ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS

Do not give me your file! I do not want your file! I do not want to be responsible for guarding it, scribbling on it, leaving it in chambers when you really need it, or handing irreplaceable bits of it to an opponent or the court. The only original documents you should give me are ones I need to hand up in court.

• Organized in any logical order you like.

No matter how you organize it, the first thing I’m going to do is pull it to bits.

If I let my fantasies run wild, you can organize by party, then by witness in reverse chronological order. But I’m still going to pull it apart.

• Not stapled

As I’m going to scan it, saves me extracting them, as well as the obvious page-turning benefits. Please also go easy on the sticky flags. If you can separate documents with dividers, that would be ideal.

• Not in any kind of permanent binding.

I’m happiest if you don’t put it in a folder at all. If I just receive an envelope of paper documents held by bulldog clips, it makes my life easier.

I will try and return your expensive custom binders, but if you don’t send them to me in the first place, it solves the problem.

Spiral / comb / stitched binding is not cool. (Yes, I’ve had them all).

• Not something you expect to get back without telling me