The immediate prurient interest in the latest episode of a case laden with prurient interest was the way Bruce Lehrmann’s legal representative, solicitor Zali Burrows, argued his appeal before the full Federal Court this week.
I will not waste space filling in the background here. If you do not know it, Google “Lehrmann” and then read on.
Lehrmann is at best impecunious, most likely broke. Burrows said Lehrmann could not afford a barrister and apologised to the court, saying she would do her best.
Alas, as the hearing went on, it was plain that her best was not going to be good enough. And that raises broad matters of public interest.
She shuffled her papers; she asked for adjournments; she fumbled over references to matters within the bowels of megapages of transcripts, affidavits, and the judgement being appealed from.
Her opposing counsel even came to her rescue on occasion. It was cringeworthy for anyone watching – and thousands were, in these days of courts live streaming.
Many in the legal profession would have been feasting on the shadenfreude, pontificating over Burrows’s “performance”.
But the broader public-interest question we have to ask is how did the system allow this situation to happen?
If you look at nearly every other area of human interaction for professional fees, systems are in place to ensure that the person doing the job is qualified by experience and theoretical testing to do that job.
Pilots get a ticket for single-engine, no passenger, daytimes flights. Then they get a ticket for a passenger or two, then for two engines, then for night flights, then for multiple paying passengers, and finally for trans-continental multi-jet-engined journeys.
Burrows’s legal best was simply not up to running an appeal in the Full Federal Court. She had a legal ticket – legal admission. But it should have been to fly a single-engine aircraft in daytime. Or in legal terms to draft a will or to do a conveyance. It should not have been to fly a jumbo jet, which, in legal terms, is what representing someone in a Full Federal Court appeal amounts to.
There are difficult questions here. Litigants should have an almost unfettered right to choose who represents them. But conversely, those who represent (or fly, or master a vessel, or do a surgical operations) for a fee should be accredited as competent to do it.
If you join a joy flight or go fishing with a mate, the standards are lower because as a non-paying passenger you consent. But once the provider of professional medical, sea-faring, or aviation services take a fee, the ball-game changes.
In the Lehrmann case we do not know whether Burrows is taking a fee. But if she is not, she should be on the record as “friend of the court” or helping out a friend with permission of the court. And that should be on the record.
In that case, it would be as if Lehrmann has been going fishing or having a joy flight with a mate, not being a paying passenger with justified expectations of crew competency.
But, as things stand, anyone with basic admission has a right of appearance.
Interestingly, in court this week, Burrows was not wearing the gown and neck decoration of barristers.
It was as if the legal system knew she only had capability of flying a single-engined Cessna, but gave her an unrestricted licence to fly a jumbo anyway.
Unfortunately, that has meant people might question whether Lehrmann got a fair shake. I am not troubled by that because the appeal judges will sort out the justice of the matter despite Burrows’s efforts, not because of them.
Nonetheless, the legal profession and the legal system generally should look at a more graded system of legal competency (beyond the ritualised tick-a-box continuous-profession-development system) to save itself and the public of events such as we witnessed in the Federal Court this week.
The system should have prevented her from joining her client in the lion’s den.
Crispin Hull
This article first appeared in The Canberra Times and other Australian media on 22 August 2025.
You failed to refer to Lehrmanns submissions filed by his lawyer and that she won the argument to defeat channel tens application for security of costs on her own. Seems your journalist skills are confined to writing about wills and probate. Perhaps you should brush up on your knowledge on defamation as you are accusing her of professional misconduct and you are aware of the solicitor rules for unfounded allegations against a lawyer.
I love the word impecunious. I was in the Darwin Local Court when the barrister said his client was impecunious. “What’s that? What are you saying about me?” asked the defendant. “I’m telling the magistrate you’ve got no money” , said the lawyer. “Oh, ok, yes that’s right,” said the defendant.