Wa-hoo!!

Carmen officially became a lawyer today! Yay for her!

The ceremony/sitting of the Supreme Court thingy that had them admitted was held at the Supreme court and, strangely enough for an official ceremony for and involving lawyers, it was pretty quick. Basically, once ye've done Legal Workshop, you need to submit some papers and then have a practicing lawyer submit that you be Admitted to the Bar (TM). What you get is a whole bunch of "Your honour, I would like to submit that 'X' be admitted to the bar and permitted to practice law in this honoured court" (or words to that effect). When everyone's had their name submitted, there's an oath. And the interesting bit here is that you get the choice of swearing on a Bible or making and affirmation. Carmen and her friend Sass made the affirmation, and it was all I could do not to scream "Godless heathens!" at them. Not that I believe that's what they are, but because it would've been funny. :)

Another interesting thing from this morning is that Philip Ruddock was there to put forward someone's name. Those of you outside of Australia might not know that Mr Ruddock - currently our Attorney General - used to be our minister for Immigration. If he didn't entirely design our current policies on detention and immigration, he certainly seemed to do fuck all to change them. And now he's in charge of justice in our country. Hoo-frickin-ray, right?

That digression aside, the Chief Justice who gave the speech welcoming the new lawyers (Chief Justic Connely, FYI), he mentioned not only Amnesty International but also the Baxter detention centre and how this is an interesting time to be practising law in Australia. I didn't actually hear Ruddock's teeth grinding, but I did find it amusing. :)

All in all, it was a pretty cool ceremony. Not overdone and not too slight either, there was a necessary solemnity, but also a lightness of tone that was refreshing for an official event.