EDITOR'S OPINION Jason MacLaurin SC Editor, Brief | Barrister, Francis Burt Chambers
This edition contains a special Mental Health and Wellbeing segment, in recognition of Mental Health Week (9 – 16 October). It features an engaging, and inspiring foreword, “A Science Fiction Reader’s Guide to Mental Wellbeing” by former High Court Chief Justice the Hon Robert French AC. Brief is all the more grateful for the foreword, as it was actually the result of misinformation (fake news, if you like) on Brief’s part. Other feature articles are Catherine Stokes on how to create safe work environments, and an article on one of [insert preferred noun/pronoun]’s best friends, Winston the Labrador’s heartwarming contribution to helping witnesses, victims and others at the Courts. We have profiles on lawyers with interesting pursuits: including an international underwater hockey player, volunteer firefighter, female footy player drafted by the Dockers, musicians and writers, and in an area dear to the Editor’s heart, a wrestling ring announcer, who hopefully stays in kayfabe1 (Editor’s word of the month, and one not entirely inapplicable to practice of the law). A focus on mental health and wellbeing is always timely. And a focus on such issues generally is particularly timely, given some of the unlovelier outcomes of the COVID pandemic. The law played a central role in the broader issues surrounding the COVID response, which results in angst and occasionally anger: the question of freedoms, rights, duties, individual liberty and privacy and the limits of regulation. While, on the whole, society’s response to COVID has been uplifting, it is not just on social media (though this is a fertile source) that many, on all and every side of the issues, seem prone or pressured into a heightened level of, for want of a better term, unkindness towards others: whether it be acting like Donald Sutherland in the final scene of The Invasion of the Body Snatchers2 or saying things like “if you think that I just hope you and, if you have kids, 4 | BRIEF OCTOBER 2021
your kids, all [….]. Apart from the phrase “with all due respect” there is no preamble more certain to lead to awfulness than that one. Hopefully, lawyers can not only cope with their own pressures, but also, to the extent they can, assist in the law’s function to defuse these unfortunate tensions. A major threat and concern, whether it be in relation to the practice of the law, or the broader reaction to the COVID pandemic, is a state of joylessness setting in. The concept of “joy” means different things to different people, but all recognise its importance, and when it is (and isn’t) present. George Bernard Shaw wrote of joy as “the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.” Mention of being thrown on the scrap heap after being thoroughly worn out is hardly on the face of it uplifting (and possibly a source of night terrors) for lawyers. Shaw seems to have meant it as the fulfilment of his wish to feel completely “used up” by the end, having left nothing behind or undone. The latter/ italicised phrase seems to sum up a considerable proportion of social media users (and, yes, even you bots too) and, to the more curmudgeonly and older folk, a good description of millennials or whatever generation is coming through. Also, get off my lawn (having turned 50 I’ve always wanted to say that). The Shaw quote is from his play Man and Superman, which, aside from its sexist title, is interesting as it is for the most part a comedy of manners, but has a lengthy third act involving Don Juan’s philosophical debate in Hell with amongst others, Satan, and which is not always performed and is often omitted (as it is far heavier going than the rest of the play).3 This concept might be a source of joy
for some, as who hasn’t been at a live performance and wanted to make an audible call at the line of scrimmage along the lines of “I’m not really in a downer mood – can we just skip to the good bits” or “I have to get home for the replay.”4 The Editor has the luxury of a straightforward definition of joy: being a fervent supporter and member of a football club for 30 years that hadn’t won a premiership for 57, and watching that team win the GF at Optus with a Mrs Mac pie in hand. An internet search for “joy” and “law” brings up reference to the management principle of “Joy’s Law” attributed to Sun Microsystems co-founder Bill Joy. Joy’s Law is that “no matter who you are, most of the smartest people work for someone else”. The impetus for the law was, like many inventive developments, the result of being irked with Bill Gates (Joy apparently wanted to make a point about Gates’ claim that Microsoft was an IQ monopolist). Joy’s Law is not as harsh as it sounds, and is not a proper basis for principals to make nasty comments about their employees. It also bears no relation to that other immutable law that, when things are going badly, clients always complain that the smartest lawyers are all on the other side. Underlying Joy’s Law is that, as Friedrich Hayek observed5, knowledge never exists in a concentrated/integrated form but is dispersed bits of incomplete and contradictory knowledge possessed by all individuals, and so it is better to create an ecology that gets all the world’s smartest people toiling in your garden for your goals as relying solely on one’s own employees will never result in the customers’ needs being solved.6 Joy’s Law may be useful for principals in structuring practices, or for lawyers in avoiding trenchant criticism or asking for a pay rise. Or it may not. Such are the joys of life in finding out.
