INTRODUCTION TO THE COURTS OBSERVATIONS FROM THE RESEARCH ORDERLY TO THE HON JUSTICE GRAEME HAROLD MURPHY
Day in the life of an Associate
The benefits of being at the Court
You will notice from the articles in this section that the specific day-to-day aspects of working as an Associate differ from Court to Court, and indeed from judge to judge.
The first main benefit is the close relationship you build with your Judge. It is very rare for a junior student / fresh graduate to have a close 1 on 1 relationship with someone at the pinnacle of their career - and that goes for most, if not all careers in the professional services sector. You learn a lot about the law and how it is applied. If your Judge is a specialist in a particular area of law, and that area aligns with your own personal interests - you will leave the Court having been exposed to interesting and niche aspects of that area.
However, you can expect to do the following categories of work: • Legal research and judgment proofing. The legal research aspect is pretty similar to that in private practice – your judge is like the partner that asks you to write a research memo on an area of law. Judgment proofing is another big aspect. This is very different to how proofing is colloquially understood. Often your judge will ask for your opinion on how well he has understood, expressed and applied the law to the facts in his draft judgment; • Administrative duties. These could include maintaining and preparing electronic and hard copy files for hearings, setting up Court, knocking the judge(s) in and out of Court, inCourt duties such as arranging video links, swearing in witnesses, passing materials from counsel to the bench, and keeping everyone’s water topped up; and • Any ad-hoc duties your judge has for you. This could include (as it does in Murphy JA chambers) watering your judge’s pot plants, keeping his printer stocked up with paper, and arranging monthly Judges’ Lunches. 140
The second benefit is the exposure to litigation and advocacy. You quickly realise what it is, and what it isn’t. If you’re remotely interested in litigation and advocacy being at the Court is a great way to be exposed to both written and oral advocacy. You can never rule something out until you’ve tried it. Being at the Court gives you many transferable skills. Critically engaging with submissions, the law, and draft judgments allows you to further develop your analytical skills and attention to detail. And these skills are transferable no matter whether you end up as a front-end projects or M&A lawyer or a courtroom advocate.
