​Volume 1, Issue 6 (Originally Published on 1 April 2012)
 
Sources have denied that the suggestion by three senior faculty members to phase in student uniforms is due to some kind of bizarre fetish. Instead, the smart new look will serve the twin aims of promoting the MLS brand and grooming JDs for the tough job market and corporate world that await them post-graduation.
 
The number of young JDs on campus has swelled this year, with stampeding and scuffling in the "quiet" study areas involving students grabbing chairs from one another and ferocious attempts to claim a lab computer not already seized by European backpackers keen to update their Facebook photos.
 
“If they behave like hooligans in the professional world, they will bring disgrace upon the law school and never last in a job. It's really doing them a favour to institute a dress code that will foster professionalism.”
 
Imposing a professional and uniform look on students has an advantage not overlooked by the Law School's self- promotion unit, which devotes considerable resources to branding and merchandising in its ceaseless attempts to position itself as the country's — indeed world's — premier institution of legal learning.
 
“As budgets tighten, we believe that having students wearing smart uniforms is a cost- effective way of raising our profile in the community and differentiating ourselves from the riff-raff who throng to lesser institutions. As the MLS logo and brand are emblazoned on accessories such as ties, tote bags, socks and scarves, the students become walking, talking publicity for the law school. We are always thinking of creative ways to enhance our profile and remind the world that we're Number Nine.” (The unmistakeablereference is to the MLS's coveted and much-discussed QS rating, though official approval of the words slogan 'Ninth Best in the World' has yet to be received.

BRONNWEN EWENS
Volume 1, Issue 11 (Originally Published 14 May 2012)
 
One of the first things students at MLS learn is that Australia is the only OECD country without a Bill of Rights. Related to this inglorious distinction is our increasing marginalisation of the rights of same-sex couples to marry.

US President Obama made international headlines this week by stating his personal support of same-sex marriage. President Obama’s public announcement was all the more principled and brave in that it came just one day after a referendum in North Carolina, a swing state, approved a ban on same-sex unions of any kind in the state’s constitution. As De Minimis readers are aware, the president is up for re-election less than six months from now, with the Republican Party sure to use his statement as ammunition in the culture wars that dominate the American political scene.

The legalisation of gay marriage was a plank in the winning electoral platform of French President-elect François Hollande and the necessary legislation should go through within 12 months.
On the other side of the world, New Zealand’s prime minister, John Key, of the centre-right National Party, piped up that he was not opposed to same-sexmarriage.

And in Australia, Julia Gillard announced that she was opposed, always had been and always would be.

Mmong UK political figures, David Cameron and Tony Blair support gay marriage, in Cameron’s case, ‘because I’m a Conservative’. They live on a continent where the issue is no longer particularly controversial. The Netherlands was the first jurisdiction to legalise same-sex marriage, in 2001. It was swiftly followed by Belgium, Spain, Norway, Sweden, Portugal and Iceland.

In North America, Canada legalised gay marriage in 2005. Six U.S. states and the District of Columbia allow it. In Mexico, gay marriage is recognised nationally, though weddings are only performed in Mexico City.

In the Southern hemisphere, Argentina and South Africa allow gay marriage, as does one Brazilian state, Alagoas. Civil unions conferring exactly the same rights as marriage are legal for same-sex couples throughout Brazil.

The prospects in Australia are grim. Gillard might be on her ninth political life, but possibly the only political figure more opposed to gay marriage is the one poised to become PM, Tony Abbott. With such reactionary views on the part of its political leadership, Australia might get around to legalising gay marriage some time in the next century, long after it has been endorsed by the Holy See, Saudi Arabia, and Swaziland.
 
Bronnwen Ewens
 

AUNTIE MYRTLE
Volume 2, Issue 1 (Originally Published 23 July 2012)

Dear Agony Aunts
I’ve been so excited about starting uni, and have signed up for every activity I can find, but after only two weeks, I am already falling behind with readings. How do I keep up?

In Need of Sleep

********

Dear In Need of Sleep,

Aunt Myrtle has seen her fair share of enthusiastic young whipper-snappers in her time. Used properly, enthusiasm can help 

you make the most of your time at uni, and gain fantastic experiences and opportunities. Sadly, the flip side is that you could take on too much and burn out, inevitably leading to you dropping out, getting a job at Wendy’s, and serving their delicious milkshakes until your bunions and bitterness force you into an early retirement.

Being the grand old dame of research that she is, Aunt Myrtle has discovered that ‘enthusiasm’ comes from the Greek word ‘entheos’, meaning ‘possessed by a God’. This being the case, use your divine motivation, and try a few of the activities on offer. Let go of the ones that are less interesting to you, so that you can enjoy the little things like sleep and a social life. This will also help you dedicate your enthusiasm to the ones you do take on.

If in doubt, just look at The Shining for further reinforcement, and see what happens to Johnny when he takes on too much. All work and no play makes Jack a dull, and clinically insane, boy.

All the best, Auntie Myrtle

ANNIE ZHENG
Volume 2, Issue 1 (Originally Published 23 July 2016)

July 23, 1926 – Fox Film buys patents for recording sound on film

On this day in 1926, Fox Film Corporation (now 20th Century Fox) bought the patents relating to the ‘sound-on-film process’ developed by sound film system inventor Theodore Case. Case designed a method whereby sound for a motion picture could be recorded directly onto the photographic film carrying the correlating image, perfecting the synchronisation between sound and picture. The sound was recorded as a variable-density optical track, which can still be played on projectors to this day.
 
Fox Film’s legendary founder William Fox secured the patents to Movietone and partnered with Case to form the Fox-Case Corporation, making it Hollywood’s third largest film studio and the only movie studio to have commercial ownership over sound-on-film technology. Case continued to work with Fox to refine the process, which would eventually become known as the ‘Fox Movietone’ sound system. This would be used to create the first ever feature film with an actual sound track, Sunrise (1927).
 
This crucial innovation spurred intense competition with other major movie studios, prompting Paramount, MGM and Universal Studios to move away from silent films and invest in producing their own sound technology systems. By the early 1930s, ‘talkies’ – talking pictures – had virtually replaced silent films in the US, thus consolidating Hollywood’s position as one of the world’s most powerful players in the history of the entertainment industry.
 
To learn more, visit http://www.movietonews.com/the_fox_movietone_newsreel.html Curious about the first sound film, Sunrise? Check out its 8.3/100 IMDB rating at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0018455/

CHRISTINE TODD
Volume 2, Issue 1 (Originally Published 23 July 2016)

Use the Academic Skills Office! It saved my life!
Some of us, namely me, over-prepare for even the simplest tasks in life. Writing birthday cards have on the odd occasion become a half-hour nightmare of writing the same birthday message in seven different ways, because each time the letter ‘w’ looked awkward. In my academic life, I don’t wing it. I write lists, make extended revisions of my notes, and compile elaborate filing system references. It’s a tad neurotic, but I like to think I produce good work because of it.
 
With that all being said, for all my neurotic semester preparation, there’s nothing quite as horrifying as entering your first ever law exam with more than 50 pages of notes. Logistically I’d taken all the wrong steps in narrowing my summaries to a workable set of exam notes, and quite ironically, was grossly underprepared for how sifting through a large chunk of notes might impact on my time. Suffice to say, my exam marks were less than ideal, and I was devastated.
 
So, with my pride firmly deflated, I sought help. Where had I gone wrong? How could I do better?
 
I sought the aid of the Legal Academic Skills Office. Located on level 3 in the law library, they provided uniquely helpful strategies for minimising note glut. These included simple suggestions like case reading techniques, a more structured approach to note taking, and reading contextually before attempting to write a case summary. They made a huge difference on my approach to study, and to date, my pre-semester exam notes have almost halved. In one half-hour session with Academic Skills I’d learnt more about how to study efficiently than I had in my entire academic career.
 
I can’t stress enough the benefits of approaching the Academic Skills Office in the development of your study routine. The Academic Skills Officer, Chantal Morton, is a delight to work with, and is eager to engage with students. It’s her job! While being a law student can feel like hours of lonely, solitary reading, you don’t have to do everything by yourself. The law faculty, bless their cotton socks, have been superb in organising guidance and services so that you can achieve the marks you deserve. So whether you feel overwhelmed by your classes, or are traipsing along in a sea of H1s, you’ve got nothing to lose.
 
Christine Todd

Charles Hopkins
Volume 2, Issue 1 (Originally Published 23 July 2016)
 
First up, don’t think that this metaphoric reunion between me and you (my readership... hi mum) is the lacklustre reunion to which I refer. I know this column is 200 words shorter than usual; that’s not because I’m not excited to write for you this semester, it’s because I have the Evidence and Proof exam to worry about (and that dead body to bury (but you couldn’t use that against me in court because it’s hearsay (right? (jeez I hope I understand evidence law)))).
The subject of this week’s rant is those tedious conversations that dominate week 1 of semester 2.

You know the ones; you bump into someone you’re kind of close with in semester one, but for whatever reason you didn’t catch up over the holidays (probably because you were salvaging your pre-law school relationships, including non-sexual, sexual or semi-sexual-semi-professional ones), so you have an awkward back and forth that involves only the most banal holiday details: the weather, TV shows and that you’ve moved from smooth to crunchy peanut butter because you wanted to spice up your sex life.
Small talk makes life terrible, like those people who spend more time in Europe on Facebook, than being in Europe.

I encourage divulging all the gory details of your holiday to give these conversations some interest. Share the story about the gender-ambiguous Mexican prostitute you played in chess, and of the time you projectile vomited onto the girl behind the counter at Maccas.
And if you don’t have anything that interesting, make something up! For example: over the holidays, the law revue cast and I shot a video sketch with Working Dog (the guys who made the Australian classic The Castle).
​
Hang on! That’s not made up! ‘Like’ us at www.facebook.com/MelbourneUniLawRevue to see the video!
Charles Hopkins is hosting a seminar on cross-promotion next week, where he will also sell copies of his new EP entitled ‘I also write cook books’.

ANDREW MICHAELSON
Volume 2, Issue 1 (Originally Published 23 July 2016)

If you were to think back to when you were a kid, in the good old days before uni, exams,  and moot was just a noise a cow/owl hybrid* would make;  when did the concept of lawyers first come into your head? When did you figure out that there was an the ethereal, mysteriously alluring  class of snappy dressed men and women out there who stood up in a court room yelling stuff like “Objection!”, “Hearsay!” and “Subpoena!”.
 
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that for most of you, it was when watching television.
 
Maybe it was the smooth, dulcet, righteous tones of Assistant D.A. Jack McCoy on Law & Order?  Or perhaps for the soap-opera persuaded it was the late-90’s flourish of legal dramas like Judging Amy, Ally McBeal, The Practice, Conviction, Damages, Trust or Justice. Or hey, there’s even a good chance it was Judge Judy.
But perhaps you’re like me, and your first real encounter with lawyers was through The Simpsons. I practically grew up on the 6pm Channel 10 Simpsons, I wouldn’t have gotten through high school if it wasn’t for pandering to the cheap laughs you could get from spouting Simpsons quotes. But one character was always guaranteed to make me chuckle, the Simpsons’ family’s typical first port of call for legal advice, Lionel Hutz.
 
Lionel Hutz, aka Miguel Sanchez, aka Dr. Nguyen Van Falk featured on the show as a lawyer of Springfield, often defending the Simpsons in court for one of their usual misdemeanors. Described as a ‘shyster’ and likely ambulance chaser, Hutz claimed to have received his degree from Princeton (though Princeton interestingly doesn’t actually have a law school). He runs his own practice out of the Springfield Mall under the name “I Can’t Believe It’s a Law Firm!” and his business card turns into a sponge when wet.
 
Hutz represented the Simpsons’ on numerous occasions, though rarely successfully. When the case looked in doubt his typical modus operandi was to slip out the window. Despite this he has won a number of cases, such as when Bart and a homeless guy sued the Itchy and Scratchy show runners for $800 billion, when Homer sued the Sea Captain’s restaurant for kicking him out when they’d promised “All You Can Eat” and when Bart sued Krusty for $10,000 in damages after he ingested a jagged metal Krusty-o “prize”, (which Hutz then proceeded to take $99,500 of in legal fees). When he babysat Bart and Lisa he also managed to haggle his fee to $8, two popsicles and an old birdcage.
 
But if you think about it though, when was the last time you actually saw Lionel Hutz in a new episode? A fact that I suspect has gone unnoticed by a large majority of Simpsons connoisseurs, is that Hutz’s character was actually discontinued in 1998. That’s right, Hutz hasn’t actually featured in a new episode in nearly 14 years. The quite sad story behind this fact was that his voice actor Phil Hartman, (you may remember him from voicing other characters such as Troy McClure and the Monorail guy), was actually murdered by his third wife at the age of 48. As a sign of respect, the Simpsons show runners chose to retire his primary characters Lional Hutz and Troy McClure. Phillip J. Fry, the star of Matt Groening’s other cartoon creation Futurama was also named in his honour.
 
Though his loss offers little grounds for humour, Hutz continues to elicit laughter or wry smiles at the least through endless Simpsons re-runs, YouTube videos and of course the memories. He was my amusing introduction to the law,  and though his case was adjourned a little early, he’s certainly earned that celebratory belt of scotch.
 
 
Andrew Michaelson
​

BRONWEN EWENS
Volume 2, Issue 1 (Originally Published 23 July 2016)

The 2012 Summer Olympic Games, officially the Games of the XXX Olympiad, begin in London on 27 July. The two billion GBP required to stage the Games come from four main sources – ticket sales, broadcast rights, sponsorships, and sales of merchandise.

Laterally-thinking law students might start to wonder about the role that the law plays in this extravaganza. While construction and commercial contracts worth huge sums are necessary to orchestrate global sports spectaculars, the Olympics also share a legal connection with lower-profile events organised by the likes of the Tug of War International Federation, the World Dance Council and the International Dragon Boat Federation.  From the humblest dragon boater to the millionaire American basketballers, all competitors must abide by the 2004 World Anti-Doping Code, which harmonises all rules and regulations governing the use and prohibition of drugs in sport. The Code is the product of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), whose current president is John Fahey, the former Australian Minister for Finance and Deregulation.

WADA has been operating from its Montreal headquarters for just a decade, yet it has chalked up an impressive record in matters of international law.  Its Code has been accepted by 145 governments throughout the world through the ratification of the UNESCO International Convention against Doping in Sport.

The Convention entered into force in February 2007. It is a legally binding instrument that enables governments to align domestic policy with the Code.  Australia ratified the Convention in 2006 and the Commonwealth Parliament passed the Australian Sports Anti‑Doping Authority Act the same year.

The Code is not without controversy. In Europe, debate continues over whether proportionality is respected by the requirement that elite athletes be in a registered testing pool and provide their whereabouts for one hour a day for months in advance.  Moreover, the entire Wada approach is based on the creed of "strict liability" – that athletes are ultimately responsible for what goes into their bodies, even if the ingestion is mistaken or innocent, and that missed tests are as serious as failed ones.

More than half of the athletes competing at the 2012 Games will be drug-tested, and the humiliation of being banned from competition and stripped of medals is a strong disincentive to taking performance-boosting substances. It is perhaps a measure of WADA’s success that competitors who hope for glory and sponsorship deals by reducing nanoseconds from their performance times are turning increasingly to high-tech swimming and running outfits like Nike’s Turbospeed suit (no doubt fiercely protected by patent law).
 
Bronwen Ewens

AUNT MYRTLE
Volume 1, Issue 12 (Originally Published 21 May 2016)

Dear Agony Aunts,
I loved the petting zoo so much I took one of the chicks home in my jackets pocket, but my housemates say I can’t keep it. What should I do?

Sincerely,

Future chicken farmer

*******

Dear future chicken farmer,
 I’m glad you’re embracing a career outside of law, as explaining dishonest behaviour to the admissions board will be awkward to do on the grounds of cuteness. You would have to take a lot of pictures of LOLcats with you to support that argument.

Aside from the theft element, a share-house is really no place for a baby animal. Even adults struggle to make it through the week in a share-house without getting drunk, riding down the stairs on a sleigh made out of cardboard, eating only mi goreng noodles and staying up until 5am downloading the latest Game of Thrones. Give the chick the stability it needs, and let go of your future of free eggs.
​
The lead up to exams is stressful for everyone, so I would emphasise the effect this had on your reasoning, and maybe up the waterworks when returning the chick to its rightful owner.

If you happen to be studying crim this year, I wish you all the luck in the world.

Sincerely,

Aunt Myrtle 

ANNIE ZHENG
Volume 1, Issue 12 (Originally Published 21 May 2016)

May 21, 2009 – South Korea Upholds Right to Die
 
On this day in 2009, the South Korean Supreme Court upheld a decision to allow a brain-damaged patient the right to die. The 76 year old woman had been comatose for over a year and unable to survive without a respirator machine. The hospital repeatedly denied requests from her family to take her off life support, arguing that the patient was still able to respond to external stimuli.
​
The Court held that continuing life support would impinge on the dignity of her life, given that there was no chance for revival. Chief Justice Lee Yong-hoon held that doctors should ‘make efforts to confirm patients’ wishes to die with dignity’, and to respect those wishes once patients entered into the ‘irrevocable death stage’. The Court also stated that express confirmation is not necessary, as a wish to die could be imputed or inferred from a number of factors, including drawing a presumption of the patient’s wishes from the patient’s relationship with family and friends.

The ruling was criticized by the Minister for Health, who felt that legalisation of ‘dying with dignity’ should be put to public opinion hearings, rather than decided by the courts. Conversely, the Korean Medical Association supported the decision, adding further that they would like to see uniform legislation introduced and guidelines put in place for doctors.

The landmark decision departed from previous law which criminalised attempts to help end the life of terminally ill patients. In 2007, a father was given a four- year suspended sentence for removing respirator from his brain-dead son.

Annie Zheng