Tips on improving your appearance

Historically, a successful lawman could expect to live a life in the law without any concern for his appearance. When I was first called to the Bar, it was not uncommon for barristers to communicate with clients, instructing solicitors and even their dry cleaners solely in writing, a dignified practice that I maintained well into the 1970s. However, with the increasing proliferation of bi-focal spectacles, a lawman’s appearance has become as important as small feet in the orient.

As a famous flâneur, looking like a distinguished and handsome advocate has always come easily to me, but others must work at it. That being said, I have never been one to rest on my laurels and have stridently worked towards self-improvement. I was lucky enough to begin greying around the temples at age 17, and, indeed, in my halcyon days was known as the “Silver Canetoad” around the Union Club. I am now blessed with probably the thickest head of hair of any septuagenarian in Australia. Rest on my profuse, hoary laurels I do not, however, and through dedication and the constant application of lemon juice and a curling iron, I have managed to train my hair to grow in the colour, texture and style of a judicial wig. This natural hairpiece gives me around-the-clock gravitas, whether I am drafting, hunting or even just visiting the corner store. This style will also facilitate my inevitable elevation to the bench, subject of course to the necessary Constitutional amendments.

But Bullstrode, I hear you ask, are the advertisements correct? Must we cleanse and exfoliate to prevent the seven signs of aging?

This question is misguided on two fronts. First, you must never ever refer to me as Bullstrode, even to your family. I will not say this again. Second, aging is not to be discouraged. I implore you to do what you can to prematurely age your face. Colourful media personality Ian “Molly” Meldrum used to spend long hours in front of industrial grade heaters, periodically basting his face with a tonic of ammonia and basil pesto, to obvious effect. His inexorable rise in the face of a manifest lack of talent and suspected communist sympathies should be all the proof you need. For the junior lawman, I suggest rampant whoring, a well trimmed moustache and a nightly bottle of Harvey’s Bristol cream.


Ian 'Molly' Meldrum - the face that has launched 1000 ships

Bullstrode's Latin Phrase Book: Res Ipsa Loquitur

Res Ipsa Loquitur: This glorious phrase means "the thing itself speaks". In fact, Res Ipsa Loquitur was the original working title for my screen play that ultimately became the moving picture comedy smash “Look Who’s Talking”.

The first reference to this phrase can be found in Cicero's wonderful speech “Pro Milone”, while its use in jurisprudence can be traced back to Baron Pollock’s wildly controversial 1863 judgement Byrne v Boadle.

Unfortunately, the phrase is generally bastardised these days to mean: "the thing speaks for itself." In both recognising and subtly drawing attention to the manifest wrongness of this colloquial usage, I brilliantly used Res Ipsa Loquitur in Whitelocke: On Lawmanship 3rd Edition (it was redacted in the first two editions) when describing a highly successful ruse I use with my good friend Geoffrey Rush to impress spinsters:

[Transcript from a conversation in club in Perth]

Rush: (Loudly) Excuse me, sir, aren’t you that famous barrister who once bested Sir Garfield Barwick in a university debate, not to mention being largely responsible for the extinction of the Eastern Spotted Quoll?

Whitelocke: “Well, sir, I am a wealthy, famous and unmarried barrister and, yes, if I could be so forthright, I did give both old Gary and those pesky quolls such a flogging that each thought themselves to be a prudish cabin boy on the First Fleet.

* * * * * *

The recognition that this ruse afforded me would have been res ipsa loquitur in Sydney or in London, but in the provinces it served me to good effect.

Extract from Journal Article

After briefly mentioning it in a recent “blog”, I have received a number of requests to post my famous article 'When is a dog wild? Semantics again triumph the spirit of the law' TB Whitelocke KC 24 AltCrimJ 7 - 125.’

While, my agreement with the publisher at the Alternative Criminal Law Journal forbids me from reproducing the entire work, I have posted an extract below (pages 84-86) which should sate the ravenous appetites of the countless hordes looking to nuzzle on the teat of my wisdom. For those who, understandably, want more feel free to contact me at Albert Bathurst Piddington Chambers and I will happily recite the entire article to you by heart. You must not take notes and should set aside between four and five hours.

* * * * *
.....In Hardman v Director of Public Prosecutions (NSW) [2003] NSWCA 130 (29 July 2003), it was noted that in McKenzie v Stratton [1971] VR 848 the defendant, who was, like me on so many occasions, charged pursuant to the Summary Offences Act 1966 (Act), although in his case in relation to allegedly being drunk and disorderly in a public place. In that decision, Nelson J commendably found that a person found in a taxicab in a car park was found in a public place, namely, the car park.
I want to make it abundantly clear that I have never shot any animals whilst in a taxi-cab. In fact, I have never been in a taxi-cab at all. Once again, I cannot over-emphasise the fact that I was on horseback and was merely a non-insane automaton, acting without any awareness whatsoever of my own actions. How can a veritable zombie, moved solely by an uncontrollable and primordial desire, be asked to pay ten (10) penalty units? More on that nonsense that later. For now it is appropriate to reflect on the injustice of the fact that this is not the first time I have been charged under this section (in addition to my many many brushes with other sections of the Act, particularly sections 11H: Intimidatory use of vehicles and vessels and 27N: No personal liability for person conducting search under direction of correctional officer) a great many times. Therefore, it is critical that you, the reader, focus on the patent absurdity of this rule, in order to ensure that noble sportsmen in the future who, unlike me on that tragic afternoon, are actually aware of their actions are not held to account by this spurious regulation. By way of background, the actual text of the section I am deemed to have offended is as follows:

28J Offence of hunting on private land
(1) In this section:
"animal" means any vertebrate animal but does not include a fish within the meaning of the Fisheries Management Act 1994 .
"hunt" an animal includes search for, pursue, trail, stalk or drive out the animal in order to capture, trap, harm or kill the animal.
"occupier" and "owner" have the same meanings as they have in the Rural Lands Protection Act 1998 .
"private land" has the same meaning as it has in the Rural Lands Protection Act 1998 .
(2) A person who, without reasonable excuse (proof of which lies on the person) enters private land and hunts for any animal on the land, without the consent of the owner or occupier of the land, is guilty of an offence.
Maximum penalty: 10 penalty units or imprisonment for 12 months, or both.
(3) Without limiting subsection (2), a person is taken to have reasonable excuse for the purposes of that section if:
(a) the person did not know that the land was private land, or
(b) the person is an Aboriginal person:
(i) who is a member, or in the company of a member, of a Local Aboriginal Land Council and who is undertaking traditional cultural hunting within the area of the Council in accordance with a permit issued under section 48 of the Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1983 , or
(ii) who enters the land and hunts an animal pursuant to a native title right or interest that is the subject of an approved determination of native title or of a registered native title claim, or
(c) the person enters the land and hunts animals in accordance with a duty imposed on the person under the Rural Lands Protection Act 1998 or the Wild Dog Destruction Act 1921 to suppress and destroy the animals, or
(d) the person is of a class, or enters the land and hunts in the circumstances, prescribed by the regulations.

I will deal with whether the deceased animal was a vertebrate, whether the property had an “occupier” and whether I knew the land was “private” in great detail later. For now, I will concentrate on the unavoidable conclusion that I was under a fiduciary duty to destroy the animal.

In coming to this result, one simply is unable ignore the axiomatic statement of my intellectual forebear Charles Dickens “There is a passion for hunting something deeply implanted in the human breast.” No human breast is more passionate than mine. As I famously said in 1948 (although this quote is often wrongly attributed to my dearly departed friend Ernest Hemmingway) “When you have shot one bird flying you have shot all birds flying. They are all different and they fly in different ways but the sensation is the same and the last one is as good as the first.” The gentle pleasure derived from discharging firearms is not limited only to airborne prey. When you have shot a European Wolf or an African Hunting Dog, that incredible sensation returns every time you shoot any other type of dog, whether it be a Dalmatian or the ever-feisty Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. The pleasure is comes from knowing that you have bested a potentially deadly foe.

These days, people are altogether too comfortable with man’s so called “best friend”. It wasn’t too long ago (in fact as recently as during the reign of James VI) when wolves in Scotland were considered such a threat to the population that special houses called "spittals" were erected on highways for protection. More frighteningly, through the power of the internet I have learned that in Italy between the 15th and 19th centuries, 440 people were killed by wolves in central Padania alone! Modern man must not ignore the lessons of history. Cowardice today in the face of burgeoning dog ownership could lead to a return of the terrors of Padania tomorrow!

I am profoundly aware of when an animal (be it a dog or even man) is wild and therefore a direct threat to human life. My mastery of this concept was never more evident that when I produced and scored a Broadway version of Joseph Moncure March’s work “The Wild Party” with Michael John LaChiusa. I have also translated The Wild Party into Legal French and Swedish. My depth of knowledge of the term “Wild” is beyond the comprehension of most and certainly beyond the criticism of any court constituted by man.

For fullness, I will now speak to be self-defence and the common law doctrine of necessity.....

CLERP article and a review from the vault

I recently submitted an article to my friends at the Alternative Law Journal entitled “The first ten years of CLERP: the codification of the Business Judgment Rule and other catastrophes in Corporate Australia’s lost decade”.

The article itself is a detailed and masterful critique of failed government policy but the stoush I had with the editor who tried to trim back the 176 page conclusion reminded me of a previous battle I’d had with the shadowy figures behind this publication.

In 2007 I had a lucrative beneficial interest in the release of a musical compact disc by an intrepid group of Sydney musicians trading as the Vexatious Litigants. Their album was met with almost universal acclaim: Ian “Molly” Meldrum described it as “the best jurisprudential jam since L.A.W by Dr Dre”, with the notable exception of a hatchet piece by my many enemies at the Alternative Law Journal. This review included such slanderous remarks as:

“There is much mystery around the formation and foundations of the band. They claim to be merely a hip hop unit made up of four University of New South Wales students (being two vocalists, a DJ and a percussionist/cellist) who decided to form a band after ‘years of attending gigs and not attending class’. But rumours abound that they have had their ’props‘ (hip hop term for credentials) established through the strong physical and financial support of the legendary Bullstrode Whitelocke KC — a barrister, politician, and philanthropist who is supposedly the enigmatic backer for the band.”

This line certainly did me no favours with my old sparring partners at the Australian Tax Office! Even worse was to come with the final kick in the teeth being this:

“The only real letdown was having to sit through the final track on the CD/EP, ‘The leper on the doorstep of equity’ a 19 minute lecture on the differences between ‘Notices to Perform’ and ‘Notices to Complete’, which reeks of a desperate clamber for mainstream acceptance by the legal fraternity. To me, this goes against the spirit of the rest of the CD, as the opening lines of the first track state: ‘Better shout out cos I’m the lawyer your mum warned you about, I push the boundaries of reasonable doubt, I never cite cases from the authorised reports, I ignore the compensatory nature of damages in torts’.”

I found this remark particularly disappointing as dealing with the difference between “notices to complete” and “notices to perform” in popular music has been taboo for far too long. Mainstream media criticism of artists brave enough to confront this issue has probably set back the movement any number of years. In fact, I can’t think of a single song or moving picture film since this review which has dealt with this important distinction.

The Full Text of this scandalous review can be found at:

http://altlj.org/images/assets/pdfs/Law_and_Culture_AltLJ_Issue_32_3_BullstrodeCD.pdf

I continue to reserve my rights but look forward to the publication of CLERP article in the next edition of Alternative Law Journal.

Finally my time has come!

Exciting news friends!

After years of politicking, lobbying, campaigning and generally greasing the palms of almost every single voter in the state, I have finally succeeded in removing the last barrier to my long overdue elevation to the Bench.

Last week, my bitter enemies in the Victorian State Government, to their deep chagrin, finally passed the Equal Opportunity Act 2010 (Act).

As a result of my relentless energy, the Act has removed a number of clearly unconstitutional exceptions to unlawful behaviour, the most important of which is the compulsory retirement of judicial officers . Grey power is back!

Blessedly, I am now able to be, and no doubt soon will be, elevated to the Bench! It has been a lasting regret of mine that, despite my brief stint on the Midwifery Tribunal in the late 1950’s I never chose to accept the many offers I received to take a seat on the Bench before I turned 75. The rejections, largely driven by my hatred of Sir Garfield Barwick and my refusal to sit down in public, were reasonable, but have nevertheless left a deep longing in both my loins and heart. Despite having never practiced law in Victoria and the likelihood that I will be the stately age of 91 when the amendments come into effect, now is finally my time to put yet another indelible stamp on Australia’s common law.

I imagine this amendment is the first domino and soon enough this type of legislation will follow throughout the country and within the next decade I will be able to be the first ever centenarian High Court judge.

Soon I will take my place alongside Võ Nguyên Giáp, Kathleen Ollerenshaw, Huang Hua and Michel Mohrt as one of the great older persons of the present day.

Tragically, however, a terrible bi-product of my furious criticism of the Victorian Equal Opportunities Act has been the removal of the exception permitting workplaces to set the standards of dress and behaviour in a way considered “discriminatory”. I am reserving my right to pursue legal action against the Victorian Government if they attempt to ban the wasp-waist frock coat amongst my otherwise disgracefully unpresentable readers.

The Whitelocke Anthology: "Mary Sidney Herbert: A Winsome Spinster"

Below is an extract from my popular historical work "Mary Sidney Herbert: A Winsome Spinster". This snippet comes from chapter 14, entitled "Mary dips a toe in the pond and becomes the mother of modern America":

History records that Mary Sidney demonstrated a great deal of interest in the actions of her famous brother, Sir Philip Sidney. Whiling away the days with Sir Phillip, this most winsome and flirtatious of vixens would dream about founding of a Protestant empire, the great jewel of which was to be the Americas, considered by Mary to be the last great refuge from Papery. To this end it is widely believed that Mary Sidney offered a great deal of support to a Mr Frobisher whom she believed would be essential in discovering and settling the protestant wonderland.

It is unclear, however, to which of the following famous North American statesmen of that name the references to this Frobisher character (which largely come from Gary Waller's seminal work Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke: A Critical Study of Her Writings and Literary Milieu. Salzburg: University of Salzburg Press, 1979) actually relate:

a) Benjamin Joseph Frobisher (1782 – 1821) a noted seal clubber and sworn enemy of Hudson's Bay Company in Southern Canada;



b) Sir Martin Frobisher (1535 – 1594) an explorer noted for his many failed attempts to find the Northwest Passage but great success in defending England from the Spanish Armada; or



c) Arthur Frobisher, (undisclosed) a successful industrialist and carouser but unsuccessful class action defendant.

Whitelocke: On Lawmanship 3rd Edition review

Although it is well known to be the epicentre of the communist/papist/federalist push to dismantle the Sydney Metro project, from time to time I find myself idly perusing the pages of Sydney University student magazine 'Honit Soit'.

If nothing else, reading these pages stained with the blood of common sense reminds me of the good old days when, wearing nothing more than a dignified expression and joined by my good friends Andrew Peacock and Peter Jensen I would lecture for hours in the grounds of St John's College on subjects as diverse as the dangers of the fast line out and the place of the Ascot in a modern man's attire.

Imagine my surprise when, recently, I came across a review of my own book On Lawmanship 3rd Edition.

To read this compelling account of of the most important legal text since Magna Carta, click here or on the graphic below and click through to page 11.

Timeline of Lawmanship: excerpt from 'On Lawmanship 3rd Ed.'

Gentle reader, today an excerpt from my ground-breaking instructional manual 'On Lawmanship 3rd Edition', described by prominent legal commentator Rodney 'Rod' Kafer as 'the next Gatley on Libel and Slander':

'A Timeline of Lawmanship (1606 - 1858)

1606: The Duyfken, out of Holland and captained by the famously scorbutic Willem Janszoon, charted the western coast of Cape York and its crew made the first recorded landfall by Europeans on Australian soil. Bless’dly neither Janszoon, nor his compatriots Hartog, Carstensz and Tasman who came later, had any success, despite their ferocious efforts to enshrine Civil Law and an Inquisitorial Judicature in Australia. Perhaps one of the few times one can be happy that someone hadn’t read Whitelocke: On Lawmanship 3rd Edition!

1788: Arthur Phillip lands the first fleet in Australia and founds a new civilisation in Sydney Cove. Unfortunately Phillip lacked the advocacy skills to encourage the natives to give up their land gratefully and to resist small pox.

1804-1808: A period of social upheaval in Australia, bookended by the second Battle of Vinegar Hill and the infamous Rum Rebellion. The violence and disorder in these times was caused in part due to the poor advocacy skills of colonial leaders, tragically born 150 years too early to benefit from my teaching, and in part due to the practice of blending vinegar with rum to enable the early incarnation of the practice of “chroming”.

1829: After the efforts of brave explorers such as Matthew Flinders, Edward Eyre and Ludwig Leichardt the whole of Australia was pronounced free of any form of native papery and was finally claimed as a British territory.

1850: My alma-mata, the University of Sydney was founded. At first the only subjects taught at the Barrumatta Road campus were phrenology, physiognomy and the studies of the habits of Giglioli’s Whale however by the time I graduated one could study anything from crystal healing, iridology, the Bates method to the teachings of Erich von Daniken. This centre of learning, while poor by world standards, has increased the erudition of Australians no end and has produced a number of Australia’s finest intellects and champions of social justice: myself, John Howard, Malcolm Turnbull, Ray Martin and John Kerr.

Unfortunately a number of my sworn enemies also attended Sydney University: Gough Whitlam, Nick Farr-Jones, Anthony Mason, Glen Stevens, Garfield Barwick, Roden Cutler, Neville Wran, Dyson Heydon, Michael Kirby, Murray Gleeson, William McMahon, Phil Waugh, Sir Douglas Mawson, Geoffrey Robertson and most of all Sir Mungo William MacCallum.

It is also claimed I have been romantically involved with the following graduates of Sydney University: Clover Moore, Susan Crennan, Dame Joan Sutherlad, Ros Kelly, Jane Campion, Jenny George and Dame Leonie Kramer.

1854: Sir Charles Hotham and Robert Rede demonstrate that development of Australian advocacy and persuasion at the Eureka Stockade.

1858: Sydney and Melbourne were linked by electric telegraph. This was the beginning of the encroachment of internets of various guises into human life and the first shot fired on the Australian front in the war between man and computers.'

For more, you can buy 'On Lawmanship 3rd Edition' here, for $20 plus postage.

Bullstrode's Latin phrase book: Inter Alia

Inter Alia: Unfortunately, the precise meaning of the term “inter alia” has been lost in the sands of time. It is, nevertheless, used regularly today as valuable “filler” in a wide variety of legal documents. Market practice would suggest that the proper usage is one “inter alia” for every thirty (30) words in general correspondence and one “inter alia” in every four (four) words in written court submissions.

Lesson of the Day

At a recent dinner with my lifelong friends Alby Mangels and real-tennis superstar Michael Chang, I was complemented on the vigour with which I attack any argument. I took this praise very seriously, as both these deeply respected and profoundly multicultural gentlemen are known the world over for unwavering commitment to their respective causes.

Upon further reflection, I came to the landing that my friends were indeed correct. Part of the reason for my enduring success is that I am never afraid to give even the haughtiest of opponents both barrels of the Bullstrode blunderbuss!

My magnificent argumentative ferocity is widely praised and has not gone unnoticed by the judiciary. For example, Mason P in FPM Constructions Pty Limited & v Australian Recreation Systems Pty Ltd & Anor [2004] NSWCA 318 remarked, with approval, that when faced with a trademark Whitelocke onslaught, my learned opponent had to resort to interacting “with studied courtesy and significant forbearance in all of the circumstances, notwithstanding a barrage of peremptory, patronising and downright offensive correspondence from the older practitioner”.

So friend, remember that if you aspire to be a great advocate, to do it properly you must leave nothing in the tank. No-one likes shandy.*



*Unless of course, it is only breakfast time. Nevertheless, the lesson stands.