End of week 2

Dear Blogglets,

What a week it has been! I have been in and out of court like a jack-in-a-box and have sat with two federal magistrates and three judges so far. Special thanks to HHJustice Le Poeur Trench, HHJustice Rose and HHJustice Collier, who have all been thoroughly lovely and tremendously helpful with the research I am conducting and were all extremely generous with their time. Next stop the FRC and tomorrow an interview with the spokesperson for the Safer Family Law Campaign. I will be speaking with Chief Justice The Right Hon. Diana Bryant at some stage this week and will let you know how that goes. I am still pretty in awe of the ADR and mediation work that goes on here, and the LAT (Less adversarial trial) seems to me the biggest success of all. The Aussie reforms, it would seem, have literally opened up the system to a whole different style of adjudication- an impressive hybrid of the old common law model and newer inquisitorial style which has managed to compliment as opposed to scupper the traditions at work here. We have a lot to catch up on I think. Watch this space.

Well...I had a busy week followed by a busy weekend: went ski-diving at the beach at Woolongong which was an incredible experience, heart-stoppingly beautiful and utterly magical AND managed to hand feed some giraffes at Taronga Zoo thanks to a friend being roomies with the keeper there-we got the opportunity to go into the enclosures and managed to see some really cool stuff the public don't get to see.

I am absolutely loving Sydney- a wonderful place with wonderfully warm people and I shall be enormously sad to leave. I am however extremely excited about getting to grips with Los Angeles and familiarising myself with their way of doing things- lets hope there are more lessons to be learned from them!

Parramatta Suburb Family Courts

With His Honour Justice Collier

Antoine Kazzi and Juliette Khoury Judicial Associates at the Parramatta Courts

"Sir, this is not Judge Judy, you are my court now-put your hand down"

Dear Blogglets,

Well, the end of my first official week in Sydney and it has been amazing! I have been to lectures, met with the Sydney Law School faculty, sat in Court and have heard a native litigant use the word 'Bonza' in court. Could life be better? Weather has not been amazing- a fair shed load of rain but an epic amount of sunshine in the inbetween periods and a weekend filled with sightseeing and a full 'cultural inauguration'. The benefits of living in a house with a native is seeing the true Sydney in all its glory in addition to the cool touristy stuff. I am as ever extremely impressed with the system over here- quick, expedient, cost-efficient and frankly ruthlessly effective. Dispensing with the formalities and getting to the nitty gritty of the dispute without counsel's intervention at the intake stage seems to be a constructive way of getting beyond the airing of dirty laundry and animosity which is so endemic to the family courts. Am off to spend some time in Sydney's Family Relationship Center this week, after court on Monday and Tuesday so hopefully I will have a more broad understanding of the key workings of the relationship between Australian litigation and mediation after that x

T'was the Night before....

Blogglets,

The eve of my departure...to give you but a taste of the progress thus far: Bedroom looks like Beirut on a bad day, Mother is running around throwing things indiscriminately into my overstuffed suitcase in what can only be described as a state of frenzy and I am finding bits of underwear and lightweight tops rolled up in shoes I'm not even planning to take with me. In other words totally standard. Farewells have begun, some more emotional than others - parents took particular offence to my mellow approach to severing the umbilical chord but I think my tears at leaving my beloved labrador for months on end may have added insult to injury on that front. So all in all I am as ready as I ever shall be and life is about ready to start 'down under'. Arrive in Sydney at 5:30am on Monday morning (ouch) so until then I shall be praying to avoid all things ash cloud / oil spill and hope I make it to Oz in one pice after touchdown in Bangkok! Wish me luck! x

Law School Graduation Day and only 5 days left...

GRADUATION FROM LAW SCHOOL

10 days to go...

Dear Blogglets,

First, thank you for taking the time to visit- this blog will serve as a sort of tracking device, following my progress across countries and continents, via plane, train and automobile and will also (hopefully) serve to reassure those nearest and dearest that just because I am not calling does not mean I have been malled by a pack of rabid hyenas/ torn limb from limb by an angry bear / eaten by a shark / sold into slavery or captured by a renegade gang of organ harvesters and sold bit by bit on the black market. So, having wrestled the cyberspace behemoth this far, I remain hopeful that I'll be able to update every few days without taking down the national mainframes of my host countries with my now wily tecnho-dweeb abilities.

So...to begin...10 days to go and not a shred of packing has been done. This is standard. I am terrible at packing. Rubbish in fact. My Mum however could take the title, if there were one, for the most items of clothing ever able to be fitted into the confines of a hand luggage bag. However, I aim to reach a happy medium this time between my inept 'throw things in and go' mentality and her 'you can fit four t-shirts, a pair of socks and a small child into your sandal if you roll and condense it' tactics. Hmm. I wonder how that one will work out.

Australia is my first stop off, and I am delirious with excitement having spent nearly every waking moment of the last two weeks attached at the ear to my Blackberry arranging stuff. Meetings lined up, tickets booked, flights scheduled (volcanic ash cloud permitting that is)...and I am off!! This time next week I will be vaccinated to the point of pin-cushionery, VISA-ready and so cosied up to the US immigration authorities that they'll be calling me for advice on White House soft furnishings. Hurrah! So exciting!

For those interested in learning more about what it is I aim to do in the three months I am gone, I have written a little more about my project elsewhere on my blog. Please give it a read if you have time.