Judge Elizabeth Gaynor (County Court of Victoria) Interview 18/10/2005

When we met the first time, you spoke about your regret that people working as counsel are not sufficiently seasoned...

Well, that’s because Legal Aid - in crime I’m talking about - the fees (in Legal Aid) are so low now that you simply cannot get senior juniors or senior counsel to appear so you’ve got very young counsel coming along. It must be terrifying for them, doing trials, and I think the awful thing is (that) they’ll make a million mistakes and not realise they’re making them. If the work comes to you more gradually, if there are more senior people that you see around, you’re actually more aware of making mistakes.

I see quite a lot of younger counsel now come sailing into court, make what I regard as breathtakingly bad mistakes, and seem(ing) to be totally unaware of the fact that they’re doing that. It’s not their fault, because they’re given that work to do and so it’s ignorance, but yes, the lack of legal aid funding is far more damaging than anyone realises.

Conducted for the Bar Oral History project by Juliette Brodsky, and filmed by Stewart Carter (People Pictures)