On being in court as a Clerk

I am sure we all think things we would never, ever say. I often do, but recently I have had this fear the filter between my brain and mouth will fail. It started with the little things such like when doing Jessup the judges are addressed at ‘Your Excellency’ where in the real courts in Australia they are addressed as ‘Your Honour’. More than once while addressing a Magistrates ‘You Excellency’ has almost fallen out of my mouth, it came out like your ‘Exel-Onour’, pretty sure I am the only one that noticed but still.. Then there is this very particular way of talking to a judge, all too formal and full of wankery I am yet to wrap my head around.

A fair whack of my job is sitting in court waiting for all the barristers and solicitors to be called on to have their matter mentioned and subsequently moved through the criminal court process before the clerks. This can mean sitting in a court from 9:00 to about 11:00 or 12:00 before my file is called. Usually what I need to say is along the lines of:

‘Good morning Your Honour. For the record my name is Ovum spelt O V U M initials O a law clerk for Great Firm seeking leave to appear on behalf of Ms Smith. (Magistrate gives me leave, unless it is a particular Magistrate who likes to toy with clerks and answers with a ‘Depends Mr Ovum’) ‘Your Honour, case conferencing has commenced and we are seeking an X week adjournment to allow case conferencing to continue’. They usually grant the time sought and I get to go back to the office.

When asked by a Judge weather I am aware of a particular thing on a case which I have little to no knowledge about instead of simply saying ‘I don’t know, can I make a call?’, the correct protocol is to say something to the effect of ‘my apologies Your Honour, I do not have those instructions or carriage of the matter, may I seek a adjournment so I can call the Solicitor who can give me the proper instructions,? Thank you.’

Yes it may seem simple enough but when you are expecting to say a very quick 3 lines, get given a date and that is all any deviation from what I am expecting terrifies me, especially because often have little to no idea of what is going on with the file. When they are asking a question my internal monologue is ‘shit, shit, shit, I don’t know, shit, the magistrate is going to spank me, shit’. I am constantly scared when answering I will just babble like a fool or get it wrong. Mooting has actually helped with this but wow it is still terrifying.

I thought my job was going to help with my mooting, turns out the mooting has actually helped with the real world - funny that.

Today is one of those days where you left your house/car keys at work, travel in only to realise the swipe key is also on the desk, you are also locked out of the house and nobody is home so blogging from uni and maybe a little forced study is in order.

Going to be a long, boring day – Obiter.

Jumping Jessup Stress

Jessup memorials have been handed in, I have jumped out of a plane, closed a million dollar sale, been smacked down in court and yet the adrenalin that was pumping before it was due was just as insane if not more so.

Some highlights:

It expired when?

We have access to the tea and coffee room after hours, this is a good thing as we needed to be fuelled on caffeine beyond the normal end of semester/exam period. One morning a team member said ‘this coffee tastes like dirty Windex’ this particular brand of instant coffee is actually pretty damn good, so it needed some investigating.



Note the expiry on that bad boy …. It expired TEN years ago! No wonder it tasted horrible..

Why you no smell?

When you don’t leave the law library for about 4 days people tend to get a little funky. This team has hygiene down to a fine art. I was sent for supplies that included; towels, soap, tooth brushes and paste, conditioner, and other assorted shower goodies. However, by the time we have access to the shower it was only cold water. Fun stuff, it worked out in the end as after a cold, cold shower we were all WIDE AWAKE. Showering at about 3am at the university was interesting; it felt like some twisted academic boot camp.

I AM GOING TO KILL YOU

We are generally a pretty cohesive team, when the memorials are due in 1 hour and stuff is still not started tempers and thresholds for bullshit runs a little low. I am not, I repeat NOT a violent person, however this twerp was so close to pushing me over the edge. All is good now but I will never, ever work with this person ever again.

Not over yet.

Now the oral practice beings.
Again, it feels like we are starting at the bottom of a long climb up massive mountain.

In other news (Kitchen talk)

I finally did it, three years of silently copping my head chefs bad temper and snarky attitude and I lost it. This is the moment I have been playing out in my head for years. It went almost to plan, almost. I grabbed a huge roll of plastic wrap and SLAMED it down on the bench, got it attention and (here it where it deviates from the plan) said a few coherent words to the effect of ‘enough, stop acting like a child, enough throwing pans, fucking grow up’ then I started making sounds miming out the his bad attitude… yup any effect I had at that point was lost as I looked like a crazy person who had lost his mind. Smooth.

However I did save my dignity as a person afterwards, when he asked if ‘everything is all good’ I told him, in a calm even tone how this was not a onetime offence, his behaviour is grossly out of line and it affects everyone in the kitchen and to check himself.  There is much more to it but this is a law blog not a ‘I hate hospitality’ page.


Back to the wondrous fun that is Jessup (this is a lie, I am lying. There is nothing wondrous about this competition)

Also. Mr Ovum came out. Things went O.K not badly, not well either. The Mother is the issue, but she will come around in time.

Jumping Jessup

Jessup owns me

If I am not in the library working on the migraine that is Jessup I am at home thinking about how I should be at uni working on Jessup. Even my dreams have been pervaded with dreams of pleading tables, international law and how grossly under prepared we are.

Uni Results were released, I passed… just, actually 2/3rds of the year failed trusts but then they bell curved it and I only passed by 1%. That freaked me out quite a bit, usually I get great marks but this was a terrible experience I never want to repeat.

I know where I went wrong, I assisted in court for a few weeks full time in the pointy end of semester and worked extra days through SWOTVAC (because I was asked to). However I don’t think I would change it, the actual hands on experience was worth it.

My pitiful marks:

Trusts: Pass

Property B: Pass

Policing diversity: Pass

Crime Prevention: Credit

WTF! A credit for crime prevention? Two assessments where all I did was 2 days before it was due was look at the power points briefly, check the criteria sheet and then start bullshitting… what a joke.

Christmas was good, until I went to Mr. Ovums house and was introduced as the ‘house mate’, four years and they still don’t know, they should but they honestly don’t. Mr. Ovum plans to tell them in the next few days that should be interesting to say the least…

I have been voted onto the Law Student Society as a competitions director for 2012, if nothing else it should be lots of fun. Out of 40 something votes I got 30 something. All the people vying for the position got up and spoke for 2 minutes on why they should be elected. I had nothing prepared (why so surprised?) spoke about how much I enjoy mooting and how this excitement would come through in how I went about by position. It worked.

I find all the good things that have been happening to me a touch funny, you see these things were never supposed to happen, not to me. I am not a stellar student, I procrastinate and never sew myself being ‘one of those students’ but here I am. Trying to keep it together and not have it all blow up in my face in a spectacular manner.

Back to the mind rape that is Jessup – Obiter

Holding myself to a higher standard – My Jessup Journey.

It is no secret that I tend to have a lower view of my academic ability. I don’t know where this has come from or how it gained such strength. If I was to go back 10 years and tell 14 year old Me I would be at University, I would not have believed it. If you were to tell me at 16 I would be at law school I would think you were full of poop.

Don’t get me wrong, I have been blessed with a very, very supportive family who have always maintained I was very intelligent, and now have a partner who states the same (in his own way). I have never really believed them and a part of me still doesn’t. In the law library I often looked at the students who were participating in the larger moots with quite a bit of admiration. These students are the smart ones, the student I would never be. I had the same admiration for the peer mentors, and I still feel that I am out of place in that group.

Someone else, someone who has no vested interest in my self-esteem, a panel of three people has nominated me to represent the University in the Jessup. I am taking this as an invitation to hold my work to a higher standard than I otherwise would have.

How did I get this nomination? Trials were held over a period of time where each person interested in the competition got to talk to a panel of three academics on a subject of their choice for three minutes. The three minute speech I gave was centred around a section of an Act that denies parental rights to homosexual couples, in that short time I explored other aspects of the Act such as the reading of the bill to illumine the context of the Act and the broader impact on same sex families. I spent about an hour practicing in the park into my iPhone and did not use any notes. The other people trying out talked about topics that were more personal and not in any way law related. I also wore a suit; I only saw a few others who did the same. When I walked out of the room I was sure I had screwed it up and would not get onto the team for a national mooting competition that I was applying for. I was totally bummed out.

I think the combination of attire and topic choice is why I was chosen. I hope I do not disappoint.

After the initial elation of finding out I will be on the Jessup team the gravity of what this means started to weigh down on me. I am not smart enough to do this! Why have they chosen me? Surely I am going to let them down by being incompetent. I have decided to put these thoughts aside and give it everything I have, if I fail it will not be because I left anything to give.

I believe I finally understand the meaning of fear of failure, for me it is the fear of putting everything you have to give into something and still failing. The fear the very you have best is still below par.

Because of this fear I have thrown myself into mooting, international law and the Jessup in the only way I know how. To become obsessive about it, I have a long history of being totally obsessed with useless things. There has been a transition in recent years towards more useful obsessions (such as becoming a law student). I have hired out the recordings of the Jessup finals for the last 4 years and I am watching them more than once or twice. I have bought more mooting text books and have devoured them (another strange theme in my life is to explore and understand my world through books). When they become available I am going to purchase the international law study guide and text book and work my way through it, if I am going to pin the tail on the donkey I should probably know what a donkey looks like.

Let the obsession begin – Obiter.

Mooting and 'Brain Gold'

Today was the semi-finals of the Jr Moot, we lost. To get to the semi-finals we beat 16 other teams. I feel O.K about this. Still a bit pissy I did not make it to the finals but at least we made it past the first round unlike last year.

Both in the first round and in the semi-final I got the same feedback - SLOW DOWN. I am quite sure until the day I die I will be told to 'slow down', I keep trying it's just my slow is most peoples fast. Again I was told I have great 'presence in the court room' whatever that means (probably because I am tall and broad), in both rounds I was told I was the best 'mooter' in the room... so why am I not at the finals...? On the bright side this time I did not forget co-councils name only worked off bullet points and knew the law/facts pretty bloody well.

I may say never again, a bit like when you go on a bender and wake up feeling like rat shit but just like drinking when the opportunity presents again I will grab it with both hands. The past 8 days have been a freaking nightmare I lived and breathed the cases, all the chefs at work knew hoe sections 7 and 8 of the Criminal Code worked by the end of last week just from listening to me talk to myself. My house is falling apart because I did not care about the stack of dishes a mile high (to be fair I gave up on house work in about week 5 - we are in week 11), there are dust bunnies the size of your fist rolling around the place as I type.

Mr Ovum and I are in the middle of a fight. I never ever let him proof anything I write. Ever. As part of the exchange process I have to write a one page essay, this is the first essay he has had any say in, in over two years. It does not end well as he is 100% confident anything that comes from his brain in gold, I have coined it as 'Brain Gold'. When I mention 'Brain Gold' it just gets worse. But to hell with it, I am a reasonably successful third year law student, when I put my mind to it my view is just as valid as his... and this is where the fight starts. To be fair I have had months to do this and I am doing it the night before it is due, this just stresses the poor man out.

Time to do some word smithing - Obiter Ovum

I did this to myslef. I did this to myself. I did this to myself

The moot problem came out. It just had to be a criminal case didn't it?! Torts I could ace, Contracts I would deal with, Property I would survive but Criminal, that is just cruel.

I have a love hate relationship with the criminal code, it has been like that since first semester last year. On the other hand this time I actually care about the issues and I am probably learning a whole lot more about the issues than I did in a very, very superficial way when I was actually getting marked on the subject.

When I read the problem I had little panic attacks that went a little like this.

Good Law Student Obiter: This is great, see a problem get overwhelmed then work your way through it bit by bit. What a great experience.

Bad Law Student Obiter: SH*T! what have you done? you have all this work to do without this crap to add to it. Anyhow your barely smart enough to bluff your way through classes, what do you think is going to happen when your under the spot light being quizzed on stuff your too dense to wrap your head around?

Good Law Student Obiter: Well on the weekend you read an entire book on mooting skills. Between the book and what you learned last time it has to be better. You will be more prepared and under control. GO TEAM!

Bad Law Student Obiter: Just shut the hell up! do you know what you got yourself into? Remember last year? First question from the bench 'what is conversion' and you honestly had no idea...none. Your screwed.

Good Law Student Obiter: Rah, Rah, Rah GO TEAM! Because of last year you will never forget that conversion is the dealing with goods in a manner inconsistent with the rights of the true owner!

Bad Law Student: Misery loves wine, drink red bull then have a wine.


Kinda a bit pissy, definitely a lot hypo right now - Stoopid cases on common purpose need to be understood if I am not going to publicly humiliate myself... again.