Australia

Paul Hayes KC, then-President of CommBar, took responsibility both for setting up the scheme and for my itinerary. He could not have been a more generous host. I will always remember our time together, and I am hugely grateful, not least for his kind invitation to the Melbourne Cup and patient indulgence of my ignorant questions about horse racing, and an unforgettable farewell dinner at the end of my placement.

While the Bar of Victoria resembles its English counterpart, much of that early influence can be traced not to London’s Inns of Court, but to the King’s Inns of Dublin. Many of Victoria’s first barristers and judges had been Irish barristers before their arrival in Melbourne. Resultingly the Melbourne bar has much in common with the Dublin bar: solicitors sit in court facing counsel with their backs to the judge, and Victorian silks – like Irish silks – wear a rosette at the back of their gowns.

There are also important structural differences between the bars in London and Melbourne. The self-employed bar in England is organised around chambers, whereas the organising unit of the Victorian Bar is a list. Lists are either owned by clerks or by barristers, and they are much larger than English sets – some have several hundred members. Members share clerks, but do not share in the costs of premises. Instead, the Victorian Bar Association performs a function similar to that of the Inns: it owns the buildings in which most barristers rent a room and organises a range of educational programmes.
The Bar prides itself on a great sense of collegiality. This is particularly apparent in recruitment. After passing an exam, and completing a course, readers (the equivalents of pupils) sit with mentors for six months. There is an expectation that mentors accept readers on a ‘first come, first served’ basis, and the mentors need not be a member of the same list as the reader. Another difference between pupils and Victorian readers is that most readers previously qualified as solicitors, and very many of them have worked as associates to judges either at state or federal level.

All this makes Melbourne an ideal place to see out the vision of Lord Goff, first Chairman of the Trust, that through the scholarship, “bridges should be built between the legal professions in the many of the countries of the world which live under” the common law.

An early highlight was a black-tie dinner held at the Melbourne Arts Centre organised by Dever’s List, which can trace its roots to the 19th century. This event capped my first week, part of which I got to spend learning from Philip Solomon KC, the chair of Dever’s List, as he was appearing in the Court of Appeal in an appeal against the judgment in Selak v National Tiles Co [2024] VSC 438 (a contractual dispute arising from an employee share option plan). During my second week, I accompanied Ben Gibson and Doug Porteus during a trial in the Federal Court in Re Castel Electronics Pty Ltd (No 2) [2025] FCA 1629 (an indemnity claim). Ben and Doug were both excellent company, and I was especially pleased that I was still in Melbourne when it was announced that Ben would deservedly be appointed as a Senior Counsel by the Chief Justice of Victoria.

Another chance to visit the Court of Appeal came shortly thereafter. Mark Costello KC was the first barrister I met when I arrived in Melbourne, and it was delightful to get to know him. I enjoyed spending time with him and Neil Young KC, David Heaton, and Marcus Roberts, the appellant’s counsel team in Oil Basins Ltd v Esso Australia Resources Pty Ltd [2026] VSCA 6. The appeal, which turned on the scope of an arbitral tribunal’s Kompetenz-Kompetenz, pitted Neil Young KC and Bret Walker SC, two doyens of the Australian Bar, against one another.

Since the state of Victoria has a very active class action litigation market, it was also particularly interesting to go to court with Fiona Forsyth KC leading Kathryn J Browne in a dispute as to who should be the representative of the class.
Judges of the Federal Court of Australia sit both as trial judges and appeal judges in panels of three. This meant that, when spending time with Jonathan Beach J, I saw two appeals as well as a day of interlocutory applications. This was a real privilege, and he could not have been more welcoming in our discussions about the cases, law, and life in general. I am also indebted to his extremely kind Executive Assistant Yota Amanatidis for making all of the necessary arrangements.
In the Supreme Court of Victoria, Patricia Matthews J went out of her way to make time for me. She and her associates were wonderful guides to the ins-and-outs of the working of the Commercial Court, whilst Joanne Boyd, the Court’s archivist, showed me around, and educated me on the history of the labyrinthine and hugely impressive home of the Court.

I would like to end by thanking additionally all of those named above, in alphabetical order because no other way seems appropriate: Albert Dinelli KC, Alexander Campbell, Andrew Beckwith, Dion Fahey, Georgia Dougles, James Waters, and Scott Cromb.

Michal Hain
Twenty Esse