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The new lawyer
SECOND EDITION

Nickolas James
Rachael Field
Jackson Walkden-Brown
Second edition published 2019 by
John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd
42 McDougall Street, Milton Qld 4064

First edition published 2013

Typeset in 10/12pt TimesLTStd

© Nickolas James, Rachael Field 2013, 2019

The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of Australia.

Reproduction and Communication for educational purposes


The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10% of the
pages of this work or — where this book is divided into chapters — one chapter, whichever is
the greater, to be reproduced and/or communicated by any educational institution for its
educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or the body that administers it)
has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL).

Reproduction and Communication for other purposes


Except as permitted under the Act (for example, a fair dealing for the purposes of study,
research, criticism or review), no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, communicated or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written
permission. All inquiries should be made to the publisher.

The authors and publisher would like to thank the copyright holders, organisations and
individuals for their permission to reproduce copyright material in this book.

Every effort has been made to trace the ownership of copyright material. Information that will
enable the publisher to rectify any error or omission in subsequent editions will be welcome. In
such cases, please contact the Permissions Section of John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd.

Cover image: © Sergey Nivens / Shutterstock.com

Typeset in India by diacriTech

Printed in Singapore by
C.O.S. Printers Pte Ltd

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
BRIEF CONTENTS
Foreword viii
About the authors xiii

PART 1 Knowing 1

1. The life of a lawyer 2


2. Fundamental legal concepts 43
3. A history of Australian law 87
4. The Australian legal system 116
5. The sources of law in Australia 152

PART 2 Doing 199

6. Legal research skills 200


7. Interpretation skills 237
8. Thinking skills 284
9. Communication and collaboration skills 326
10. Self-management skills 366

PART 3 Being 395

11. Being realistic 396


12. Being committed to justice 426
13. Being ethical 455
14. Being future-ready 489

Index 526
CONTENTS
Foreword viii Private property 77
About the authors xiii Equality 81
Key terms 84
PART 1
Exercises 86
Knowing 1 Acknowledgements 86

CHAPTER 1 CHAPTER 3

The life of a lawyer 2 A history of Australian


Introduction 3 law 87
1.1 Being a lawyer: myths and realities 4 Introduction 88
Thinking like a lawyer 4 3.1 Indigenous Australians and the law 89
Myths about being a lawyer 5 Who are the Indigenous Australians? 89
The realities of legal practice 7 Customary law 90
1.2 A diversity of career options 10 Terra nullius 92
A changing profession 11 3.2 The development of British law 94
Traditional career paths 11 Early British history 94
Work sectors 14 The rise of parliament 96
1.3 Your legal education 22 The social contract 98
Legal education in Australia 22 Common law and equity 99
Making the most of your legal education 28 3.3 The development of Australian law 101
1.4 Developing a professional identity 36 Colonial law 101
What is a ‘professional identity’? 36 Federation 104
The importance of a positive professional 3.4 Indigenous Australians and the law
identity 37 today 106
Academic integrity 38 Indigenous legal issues 107
Key terms 41 The way forward 111
Exercises 42 Key terms 114
Acknowledgements 42 Exercises 115
Acknowledgements 115
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 4
Fundamental legal
concepts 43 The Australian legal
Introduction 44 system 116
2.1 Law 44 Introduction 117
What is ‘law’? 45 4.1 Seven key characteristics 117
The categories of law 47 The rule of law 117
The need for law 51 A liberal democracy 118
The changing law 54 A common law legal system 120
2.2 Law and extrinsic standards 56 A constitutional monarchy 120
Natural law theory 57 A federation 121
Legal positivism 62 The separation of powers 122
2.3 Law and liberal values 66 Responsible government 123
Liberty 67 4.2 The Australian Constitution 124
Reason 71 Structure of the Constitution 125
Rights 75 Constitutional conventions 126
Federal and State relations 127 Think carefully about your search terms 208
Residual powers 132 6.2 Know where to look 211
Regulating the Territories 133 Primary and secondary sources 211
Rights and freedoms 133 Legal research tools 212
Changing the Constitution 134 Finding secondary sources 214
4.3 The State constitutions 136 Finding case law 215
Similarities and differences between the State Finding legislation 217
constitutions 138 6.3 Access good-quality information 219
4.4 Executive government in Australia 140 Online versus hard-copy sources 219
The Governor-General and the State Use current information 220
Governors 140 Use authoritative information 221
The Executive Council and the Cabinet 142 Use relevant information 221
Challenging the executive 145 Be patient 224
Key terms 149 Know when to stop looking 225
Exercises 150 6.4 Read actively and efficiently 226
Acknowledgements 151
Reading actively and efficiently 226
Reading case law 228
CHAPTER 5
Reading legislation 229
The sources of law in 6.5 Apply your research 230
Australia 152 Applying research to legal problem
solving 230
Introduction 153
Applying research to writing a paper 231
5.1 Legislation 154
Citing your research 231
What is ‘legislation’? 154 Key terms 236
Parliamentary sovereignty 155 Exercises 236
5.2 The structure of parliament 156 Acknowledgements 236
Federal Parliament 156
State and Territory parliaments 157 CHAPTER 7
The role of the Crown in parliament 158
Parliament in operation 158
Interpretation skills 237
Types of legislation 163 Introduction 238
Delegated legislation 165 7.1 Reading the law 239
5.3 Case law 169 Legislation 239
What is ‘case law’? 169 Case reports 242
Court systems 169 7.2 Interpreting the law 248
Court processes 179 The need for interpretation 248
The doctrine of precedent 189 Statutory interpretation 250
Key terms 194 Interpretation of contracts 269
Exercises 198 7.3 Interpretation in practice 275
Acknowledgements 198 Meaning and intent 276
Text, context and purpose 276
PART 2
Using ambiguity 277
Doing 199 A practical guide to interpretation 278
Key terms 281
CHAPTER 6 Exercises 282
Acknowledgements 283
Legal research skills 200
Introduction 201 CHAPTER 8
6.1 Adopt a systematic approach 203
Thinking skills 284
Plan your research 205
Introduction 285
Undertake some background reading 207

CONTENTS v
8.1 Legal reasoning 286 Reflective practice 376
What is ‘legal reasoning’? 286 Using feedback appropriately 380
The IRAC method 287 Resilience 384
Legal reasoning and logic 292 Hope and optimism 388
Legal reasoning and policy 302 Mindfulness 391
8.2 Critical thinking 304 Exercises 394
What is critical thinking? 304 Acknowledgements 394
Criteria-based judgement 305
Three types of critical thinking for law 306
PART 3
An act of thoughtful disobedience 308
Becoming a critical thinker 309 Being 395
8.3 Creative thinking 319
What is creative thinking? 319 CHAPTER 11
Creativity in law school and legal
practice 320
Being realistic 396
Becoming a creative thinker 321 Introduction 397
Key terms 323 11.1 Formalism vs realism 397
Exercises 324 Strict formalism 399
Acknowledgements 325 Moderate formalism 399
Legal realism 403
CHAPTER 9 Judicial activism 405
11.2 Law and power 407
Communication and Marxist legal theory 408
collaboration skills 326 Critical legal studies 409
Introduction 327 Postmodern legal theory 411
9.1 Communication skills 327 Feminist legal theory 417
The importance of effective communication Critical race theory 422
skills 327 Key terms 424
The objectives of legal communication 329 Exercises 424
Understanding the audience 335 Acknowledgements 425
9.2 Communicating effectively 338
CHAPTER 12
Written communication 338
Oral communication 346 Being committed to
Non-verbal communication 352
9.3 Collaboration skills 356
justice 426
The importance of effective collaboration Introduction 427
skills 356 12.1 The nature of justice 427
Collaborating effectively 358 Theories of justice 427
Key terms 364 Types of justice 429
Exercises 364 12.2 Access to justice 434
Acknowledgements 365 The problem 434
Some solutions 440
CHAPTER 10 12.3 Two social justice issues 448
Self-management Homelessness 448
Immigration detention 450
skills 366 Key terms 453
Introduction 367 Exercises 453
10.1 The importance of self-management 368 Acknowledgements 454
Mental health and wellbeing 368
10.2 Six self-management skills 371
Independent learning 372

vi CONTENTS
CHAPTER 13 CHAPTER 14

Being ethical 455 Being future-ready 489


Introduction 456 Introduction 490
13.1 Ethics 457 14.1 Disruption and transformation 491
What is ‘ethics’? 457 Globalisation 491
Knowing the ‘right’ thing to do 458 Diversification 493
The relationship between laws and Emergent technologies 495
ethics 463 The end of lawyers? 497
Extending moral status 464 14.2 Preparing for the future 498
13.2 Professional ethics 475 Be flexible and open-minded 498
The duties of a lawyer 476 Be committed to lifelong learning 499
Ethical rules 477 Service skills 501
Conflict between professional and personal Be globally minded 502
ethics 481 Be positive and optimistic 515
Key terms 487 Key terms 523
Exercises 487 Exercises 524
Acknowledgements 488 Acknowledgements 525

Index 526

CONTENTS vii
FOREWORD
Professor Sally Kift wrote the foreword to the first edition in May 2012. We are reproducing it in the second
edition because many of the issues discussed are just as relevant now as they were back then. Professor
Kift’s foreword to this new edition follows immediately after as an addendum.

Foreword to the first edition: re-imagining the first year of legal


education
Professor Sally Kift1
As they commence their journey to becoming the next generation of new lawyers, what should commencing
law students know, understand and be able to do as a result of their learning in the critical first year of their
legal education? How might the curriculum, their teachers and their peers support first year learners for an
optimal and positive engagement with the study of law and the disciplinary culture? How might those same
first year students be facilitated further to lay the robust foundations necessary for future learning, diverse
careers and global citizenship in an evolving knowledge economy? The New Lawyer seeks to answer these
questions, and more besides, by re-imagining the ‘educational conditions’2 in which we place first year
law students and by advocating a coherent, sustainable and carefully aligned legal education that seeks to
ensure all students entering Australian law schools, whether undergraduates or postgraduates and whatever
their entering backgrounds and experiences, are supported equitably to learn and succeed academically,
socially, emotionally and philosophically.
The first year of the modern law degree bears a heavy foundational burden, as even the briefest
rehearsing of contemporary challenges (and opportunities) makes clear. In the context of a national
quality and regulatory regime, heralded by the commencement of the Tertiary Education Quality and
Standards Agency (TEQSA) in early 2012, the first year must be constructively designed with the end
— articulated program outcomes — firmly in mind. Specifically, it must make an intentional contribution
to the demonstration of student attainment of minimum discipline learning outcomes — the ‘Threshold
Learning Outcomes’ (TLOs) for law,3 which were developed with broad disciplinary consensus over 2010
and are congruent with the requirements of the Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF),4 the latter
comprising a critical component of the government’s Higher Education Standards Framework. The TLOs
are an important anchor-point and frame of reference for many of this book’s chapters, while the discussion
itself makes a further and significant contribution to legal pedagogy in the context of the HE Standards
Framework, given that HE providers are required to assure, at a threshold level, that all staff who teach
students ‘have an understanding of pedagogical and/or adult learning principles relevant to the student
cohort being taught’ and implement good and scholarly practice.5

1 Sally Kift is President of the Australian Learning & Teaching Fellows, an Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC)
Senior Fellow, a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law and an ALTC Discipline Scholar: Law. She was formerly the Deputy
Vice Chancellor (Academic) James Cook University, a Professor of Law, Queensland University of Technology (QUT), the inaugural
QUT Director, First Year Experience and an Assistant Dean (Teaching and Learning), QUT Faculty of Law.
2 Vincent Tinto, ‘Taking Student Retention Seriously: Rethinking the First Year of University’ (Paper presented at the FYE
Curriculum Design Symposium, Brisbane, 2009) <http://www.fyecd2009.qut.edu.au/resources/SPE_VincentTinto_5Feb09.pdf>.
3 Sally Kift, Mark Israel and Rachael Field, Bachelor of Laws Learning and Teaching Academic Standards Statement (ALTC
Learning and Teaching Academic Standards Project, 2010) <http://disciplinestandards.pbworks.com/w/page/52746378/Law>.
TLOs for the Juris Doctor (JD), a Masters Degree (Extended) level qualification under the Australian Qualifications Framework,
have also been developed over 2011?12. The JD TLOs have taken as their starting point the TLOs for the Bachelor of Laws.
4 The Australian Qualifications Framework — First Edition July 2011 <http://www.aqf.edu.au/>
5 See the Higher Education Standards Framework (Threshold Standards) 2011, a legislative instrument made under the TEQSA Act
2011, especially in this regard the Provider Course Accreditation Standards and the Provider Category Standards.

viii FOREWORD
As this book makes explicit, in accordance with the principles of transition pedagogy,6 law’s first year
must be designed carefully and intentionally to assist diverse student cohorts make the successful transition
to the nature and culture of legal learning, while also equipping them with the requisite knowledge, skills
and dispositions needed, not only to persist, but to be successful and independent over the course of their
degree, and for a lifetime of professional practice, the latter inevitably now characterised by challenges and
ideas unimaginable at the time of university study. For undergraduates new to higher education, especially
those from non-traditional backgrounds, the first-year experience of law may be exacerbated by the need
also to adjust to independent learning at the tertiary level, in all of its social, cultural, administrative and
academic facets. For graduates coming to law from other disciplines, a measure of guided ‘unlearning’
may need to be intentionally facilitated to aid transition from prior, and quite different, educational genres.
A great strength of this book is that it makes clear and explicit what is required for early learning success
in law by demystifying the often hidden rules, behaviours and habits that students require for success as
they strive for mastery of their new law student role.7 It does this by presenting and exampling fundamental
threshold concepts and foundational skills — including the skills of research, thinking, communication,
collaboration and study — in an engaging and accessible manner, while holding firm to uniformly high
expectations and standards of all students. This substance, together with the practical tips and guidance
provided, the pauses for reflection on learning, and the underlying requirement for students to engage
with an emergent sense of professional identity — what it is to think like a lawyer, to act responsibly and
ethically, and to promote the ideals of justice and public service — are everything that the academy, the
profession and society more broadly could wish for in a thoroughly modern legal education that better
prepares its students to take their place as ‘intellectually and morally responsible citizens’.8
But, as the marketers would say, ‘that’s not all’. Many other contemporary educational imperatives are
also addressed in this thoughtful and comprehensive first year treatise and, in its pages, both law teachers
and law students alike are provided with the tools required to respond and thrive in a crowded curriculum
landscape. Particularly, the more recent obligation to address well-founded and specific concerns around
the mental health of law students and the effect of law’s signature pedagogies on student wellbeing are
considered, while other, more perennial, issues regarding the assurance of deep learning engagement with
subject matter often perceived to be complex and dense are dealt with in the constructivist way through the
provision of opportunities to contextualise and make sense of learning by building on prior experiences
and establishing relevance through connection with contemporary issues and affairs. Law students’ and
graduates’ special obligations to our country’s Indigenous peoples, the desperately needed paradigm shift
to balance adversarial with alternative dispute resolution thinking and engagement with broad notions of
justice and global citizenry, round out this impressive first year curriculum roadmap.
As is obvious in the above, The New Lawyer is a learning-centred text written by three highly regarded
experts in legal education and the first year experience. It seeks to assure and enhance the quality of the
first-year student experience of law by explicitly engaging, motivating and supporting student learning.
It engages commencing law students through its dynamic writing style, appealing format, periodic
references to contemporary issues and events, and the use of flowcharts, checklists, diagrams, tables
and timelines. Acknowledging the diversity of career pathways open to law graduates, professional and
wider vocational relevance and opportunities are explored by providing explanations of how the material
canvassed relates, not only to the practice of law and broader professional responsibility, but also to the
acquisition of both generic and discipline-specific employability skills.

6 Sally Kift and Karen Nelson, ‘Beyond Curriculum Reform: Embedding the Transition Experience’ in Angela Brew, and Christine
Asmar (eds), Higher Education in a Changing World, Research and Development in Higher Education, (University of Sydney,
2005) 225 <http://conference.herdsa.org.au/2005/pdf/refereed/paper_294.pdf>; Sally Kift, Final Report for ALTC Senior Fellowship
Program (ALTC, 2009) <http://www.fyhe.qut.edu.au/transitionpedagogy/>.
7 PJ Collier and DL Morgan, ‘“Is that Paper Really Due Today?”: Differences in first-generation and traditional college students’
understandings of faculty expectations’ (2008) 55(4) Higher Education 425.
8 Margaret Davies, ‘University Culture or Intellectual Culture?’ in B Brecher, O Fleischmann and J Halliday (eds), The University
in a Liberal State (Ashgate Publishing (Avebury Series), 1996) 24.

FOREWORD ix
The book motivates student learning by promoting active and authentic learning. It does this by
modelling, and explicitly requiring students to practise, what they need to do with the knowledge they are
acquiring; all of the domains — knowledge, skills and dispositions and their practical applications — are
canvassed in the pages that follow, and no one domain is privileged to the detriment of another. The book
includes in each chapter regular self-directed learning exercises, practical exercises for the development
of important foundational legal skills, exercises that promote student collaboration, and prompts and tasks
that require students to apply their learning to practical situations.
Finally, the book supports student learning by encouraging both reflective and independent learning. It
does this by including specific material on how to be a reflective practitioner and an independent learner,
exercises that require students to engage in independent learning (for example, particularly in relation to
legal research skills development), prompts requiring students to reflect upon what they have learned, and
tasks requiring students to reflect upon their own views and beliefs.
As legal educators, we have a responsibility to ensure that the first-year experience of law is inclusive,
engaging, supportive, intentional, relevant and social. This book is an invaluable tool for ensuring
compliance with that responsibility. It is a fresh and innovative re-imagining of the contemporary first year
of legal education. I strongly commend this book and offer my warmest congratulations on a significant
accomplishment to both its authors and its publisher, John Wiley & Sons.
May 2012

Addendum to foreword: The New Lawyer 2nd edition


Professor Sally Kift
In 2018, 2012 seems a professional lifetime ago. In the six years that have elapsed since the first edition of
The New Lawyer was published, it seems trite to observe that much has changed. Somewhat comfortingly,
however, some things have also remained constant. The book’s title, in particular, is enduring and was
prescient. ‘NewLaw’ has now entered the profession’s lexicon and the future-proofing of our profession
requires NewLawyers in response. In the context of another ‘new’ — the new normal of disruptive
innovation challenging the practice and content of law and unbundling the business of lawyer and legal
work — this second edition is timely and welcome.
As legal educators and the legal services industry alike are buffeted by a relevance tsunami of constant
change due to digitisation, automation and artificial intelligence, accelerated by generational shifts, this
second edition engages with the pressing imperative that the next iteration of legal practice should
prepare for a ‘digital, divergent and differentiated future’.9 First year law students and their educators
are encouraged to be optimistic and positive in preparing for law’s future and, in these pages, are provided
with the strategies and agency to do and be so.
Looking with 2018 eyes at the framing of the book around the 2010 Threshold Learning Outcomes
(TLOs) it seems appropriate to observe that the adaptable TLOs have retained their relevance, been
extended to the Juris Doctor,10 and continue to stand the Australian Legal Academy in good, future-
proofing, stead. Just as legal knowledge has always had a limited shelf life, so too it has now become
apparent that fit-for-contemporary-purpose skill sets are no longer stable and will routinely become
obsolete without continual iteration: ‘disruption is … changing the skills that employers need and
shortening the shelf-life of employees’ existing skill sets in the process’.11
In this context then, any attempt to future-proof lawyering skills in the face of endemic skills instability
requires an emphasis on a twenty-first century mindset that recognises both the opportunities and the

9 Australasian Legal Practice Management Association, Preparing Australasian Law Firms for a Digital, Divergent, Differentiated
Future (2015) <https://www.alpma.com.au/Research/download-the-2015-alpma-lexisnexis-research-report
10 Juris Doctor Threshold Learning Outcomes, Endorsed by the Council of Australian Law Deans, March 2012 <http://
disciplinestandards.pbworks.com/w/file/57628366/JD%20TLOs%20(March%202012).pdf>.
11 World Economic Forum, The future of jobs: Employment, skills and workforce strategy for the fourth industrial revolution (2016)
19. <http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Future_of_Jobs.pdf>.

x FOREWORD
challenges of a tech-enabled profession. In order for the new lawyer to thrive in the face of professional
disruption, they will need to be cognisant of technology’s capabilities, able to harness those affordances
appropriately, interpret and leverage the outputs delivered and, most critically, be predisposed and
ethically confident enough to challenge it all. It is interesting to observe, then, that frequently nominated
twenty-first century skills coalesce around many of those already commonplace in core Australian legal
curricula pursuant to Australian Qualification Framework (AQF) requirements,12 the TLO statement(s),13
and university articulations of graduate attributes. They include: communication (TLO 5), collaboration
(TLO 5), critical thinking (TLO 3), problem solving (TLO 3), creativity (TLO 3) and self-management
(TLO 6 in various of its behavioural aspects). Particularly, as regards the last of these, as encompassed in
TLO 6, self-agency, agentic career self-management, resilience, mental health and wellbeing are now more
critical than ever before for an uncertain world of future legal work. Any laundry list of other desirable
twenty-first century skills might include digital literacies, design thinking, entrepreneurship, enterprise,
innovation and interdisciplinarity — each of which, it is suggested, is underpinned by the core thinking
skills of problem solving, criticality and creativity (TLO 3), and enabled by well-developed interpersonal
competencies (TLOs 5 and 6) and the ‘the intellectual and practical skills needed to identify, research,
evaluate and synthesise relevant factual, legal and policy issues’ (TLO 4). The lawyering aspects that are
less automatable (for the time being at least) also come to the fore; for example, ethical judgement (TLO 2),
strategy and creativity (TLO 4), and empathy and social intelligence (TLO 5). It is reassuring that each
of these variously required twenty-first century skills finds nuanced and contemporary resonance in the
TLOs’ broad articulation and their treatment in this book.
When setting the context for educating the new lawyer, it is salient to recall that, underpinning the
quality of Australian legal education, sits the Higher Education Standards Framework 2015 (which has
been amended since its initial articulation in 2012). Those Standards explicitly require that both course
design and its legal educator proponents assure currency and contemporary relevance. In every respect —
course content, curriculum design, pedagogy and the purveying of it all — the requirement is to engage
with current knowledge, scholarship, research and ‘advances in practice’.14 The New Lawyer does this and
more.
As we look to the future of legal education, as this book so ably demonstrates, ’The kids are alright’, to
channel the then President of the Law Council of Australia in 2017.15 We do need to be vigilant around
assuring a more diverse and representative profession, given recent research findings that law, in common
with medical studies, has poor participation rates for students from low socio-economic status and regional
backgrounds — this being particularly the case in the elite Group of 8 (Go8) universities.16 While much
has changed in law and legal education, the pressing need for a new approach to professional accreditation
remains unfinished business:17 the ‘dead hand of Priestley’,18 with its sole focus on the prescription of

12 Australian Qualifications Framework Second Edition (2013) <https://www.aqf.edu.au/>.


13 Sally Kift, Mark Israel and Rachael Field, Bachelor of Laws Learning and Teaching Academic Standards Statement
(ALTC Learning and Teaching Academic Standards Project, 2011) <http://disciplinestandards.pbworks.com/w/file/fetch/52684195/
KiftetalLTASStandardsStatement2010.pdf >, which have now also been incorporated into the Council of Australian Law Deans,
CALD Standards for Australian Law Schools (As Adopted 17 November 2009 and Amended to March 2013) <https://cald.asn.au/
wp-content/uploads/2017/11/CALD-Standards-As-adopted-17-November-2009-and-Amended-to-March-2013-1.pdf>.
14 See Standards 3.1 and 3.2 Higher Education Standards Framework (Threshold Standards) 2015 <https://www.legislation.gov.
au/Details/F2015L01639>
15 Fiona McLeod SC, ‘Looking to the future of legal education’ (Paper presented at the Australian Academy of Law Conference,
Sydney, 2017) <http://www.academyoflaw.org.au/resources/Legal%20Education%20Conference%202017%20Final%20Papers/
Fiona%20McLeod%20-%20Looking%20to%20the%20future%20of%20legal%20education.pdf>
16 Erica Southgate, Fair Connection to Professional Careers: Understanding Social Difference and Disadvantage, Institutional
Dynamics and Technological Opportunities (2017) NCSEHE & The University of Newcastle <https://www.ncsehe.edu.au/
wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Southgate_Fair-connection-to-professional-careers.pdf>
17 Cf Sandford Clarke, ‘Regulating Admissions – Are We There Yet?’ (Paper presented at the Australian Academy
of Law Conference, Sydney, 2017) <http://www.academyoflaw.org.au/resources/Legal%20Education%20Conference%202017%
20Final%20Papers/Sandford%20Clark%20-%20Regulating%20Admissions%20-%20Are%20we%20there%20yet.pdf>
18 Misa Han, ‘University no trade school for lawyers’, Australian Financial Review, 23 October 2014, quoting then High Court Chief
Justice Robert French <http://www.afr.com/news/policy/education/university-no-trade-school-for-lawyers-20141023-11awap>

FOREWORD xi
legal content knowledge, has long passed its use-by-date; the core/elective subject area designation is more
contentious than ever; NewLaw suggests specialisation rather than broad coverage; and there is serious talk
of the need to expand the mandatory curriculum beyond fields of substantive law, to develop, for example,
technology and business acumen and non-legal skills.
These last matters — assuring professional diversity and re-imagining accreditation — illustrate the
next great challenge for our profession. In a way that has not happened before, we need to ramp up our
full collective and creative effort, with all disciplinary arms working in concert — educators, government,
practicing profession, judiciary, accrediting bodies, regulators, students and graduates alike — to build a
shared vision for a sustainable, relevant, future professional state, with easy and routine access to lifelong
upskilling and retraining as further, inevitable, disruption will require. This is another demand of The New
Lawyer. This work is to be commended for the contribution it makes and will undoubtedly continue make
to that next exciting phase of our profession’s metamorphosis.
October 2018

xii FOREWORD
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Nickolas James
Professor Nick James is the Executive Dean of the Faculty of Law at Bond University. He is a former
commercial lawyer, and has been practicing as an academic since 1996. His areas of teaching expertise
include business and commercial law, ‘law in society’ and legal theory, company law, the law of succession
and property law. He has won numerous awards for his teaching including a National Citation for
Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning. He is the author of three texts: Business Law, Critical
Legal Thinking and The New Lawyer (with Rachael Field). He has written numerous journal articles, book
chapters and conference papers in the areas of legal education, critical thinking and critical legal theory.
Professor James is the Director of the Centre for Professional Legal Education, Executive Editor of the
Legal Education Review, and Chair of the Australasian Law Teachers Association (ALTA).
Rachael Field
Rachael is a Professor in the Faculty of Law at Bond University, and a member of the executive committee
of the Centre for Professional Legal Education. Her areas of research expertise include dispute resolution,
legal education, family law and domestic violence. Rachael has received a number of national teaching
awards including a national citation in 2008, a national teaching fellowship in 2010 (through which
she developed curriculum practices for the promotion of law student wellbeing) and a national teaching
excellence award in 2014. Rachael is an Australian Learning and Teaching Fellow, member of the Fellows
Executive and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. She co-chairs the annual STARS
conference, which has a focus on student success in tertiary education. Rachael founded the Australian
Wellness Network for Law in 2010, and is now expanding it internationally. In 2010, Rachael contributed
significantly to the drafting of the Threshold Learning Outcomes for law, which have had national and
international impact. Rachael is also co-founder of the Australian Dispute Resolution Research Network.
She has a portfolio of more than 80 scholarly publications many of which are legal education focussed,
and is co-author of four books. Rachael has volunteered at Women’s Legal Service, Brisbane, since 1993,
and has been president of the Service since 2004. In 2013 Rachael was named Queensland Woman Lawyer
of the Year.
Jackson Walkden-Brown
Assistant Professor Jackson Walkden-Brown has been teaching law at Bond University since 2004. His
principal areas of teaching and research include legal foundations, animal law and entertainment law. He
has designed curricula for a significant number of compulsory, elective and clinical law subjects for both
traditional and online delivery. Jackson has been recognised for teaching excellence with awards in 2004,
2006, 2008, 2016 and 2018. For most of his academic career, Jackson has also maintained a part-time
practice as a legal practitioner, specialising in copyright and entertainment law. He has a keen interest in
exploring the digital disruption of legal services and embracing technological advances to develop new and
innovative ways to deliver cost-effective legal services to his clients. Jackson also has extensive practical
experience in the pro bono sector and an ongoing relationship with numerous community legal centres and
volunteer organisations.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS xiii


PART 1

KNOWING
In part 1, ‘Knowing’, we address the broad areas of knowledge that must be understood by every new
law student. On completing part 1 you will know about:

1 The life of a lawyer 2


2 Fundamental legal concepts 43
3 A history of Australian law 87
4 The Australian legal system 116
5 The sources of law in Australia 152
CHAPTER 1

The life of a lawyer


LEARNING OBJECTIVES

After studying this chapter you should be able to:


1.1 describe the myths and realities of being a lawyer
1.2 recall the diverse range of career opportunities available to you as a result of completing a law degree
1.3 explain the various ways to make the most of your legal education from your first year as a law student
1.4 reflect upon the meaning and importance of developing a positive professional identity as both a law
student and a future lawyer.
1.1 Being a lawyer: myths and realities
LEARNING OBJECTIVE 1.1 Describe the myths and realities of being a lawyer.
So, what will it be like to be a new lawyer? As a legal professional, you will advise and advocate on behalf
of individuals, businesses, organisations and governments. The problems you will be called upon to solve
will be challenging and complex. You will provide an important service to the community by assisting
people with their transactions and legal affairs, negotiating on their behalf, and advocating for their rights
and interests to be recognised and protected.
Beyond that, it is not very easy to describe exactly what a typical lawyer does on a day-to-day basis.
This is because there is no such thing as a ‘typical lawyer’. A day in the life of a criminal lawyer is
very different from a day in the life of a commercial leasing lawyer, and different again from that of
an employment lawyer. Depending on whether you are a solicitor or barrister, whether you work in
private practice or the community sector, for an international firm or for the government, you will work
with the law in different ways and experience different work environments, different levels of interaction
with clients and different levels of workload.
Before we look in more detail at some of the many career options available to lawyers and at some
examples of a typical day in the life of different types of legal professionals, we will first explore what
it means to ‘think like a lawyer’. This will help you better understand the nature of a lawyer’s thought
processes and how they impact the way that the legal profession is perceived by those outside of the law.
We will then address the most common myths about lawyers and describe some of the realities of legal
practice. There is considerable value in thinking about these things at the start of your legal studies. Having
a general insight into how a lawyer thinks, who a lawyer is and what a lawyer does can help you to make
sense of the complex rules and concepts in the substantive law that you will be learning over the next
few years.

Thinking like a lawyer


In well-known old Hollywood film The Paper Chase, the ominous Harvard professor Charles W Kingsfield
Jr proclaimed to his first-semester students that they’d arrived at law with ‘skulls of mush’ but would leave
‘thinking like lawyers’. One of the central aims of law teachers is to teach their students to think like
lawyers. But what does that actually mean? What is so special about how a lawyer thinks? Much has been
written on this topic. At this stage of your learning, it is helpful to think about the concept with reference to
the proposition that lawyers assume nothing and connect everything. We will explore the notion of thinking
like a lawyer in more detail in the chapter on thinking skills, but for now we will briefly consider the two
limbs of this proposition.
The first limb is that lawyers assume nothing. Lawyers pride themselves on resisting the temptation to
jump to conclusions. For example, a lawyer will not assume a client’s guilt just because the facts or rules are
seemingly stacked against them, because the lawyer knows that there might be other evidence or arguments
that have not yet come to light. You may have heard that a lawyer’s most common response to a question
is ‘it depends’. Lawyers strive to find every relevant fact, locate every applicable rule, determine every
possible issue and consider every conceivable argument before offering their opinion or advice. They think
as hard, if not harder, about opposing positions as they do their (or their client’s) own position. The predis-
position to a discerning and non-assumptive thought process is one of the hallmarks of legal reasoning and
impacts the way a lawyer functions in a non-legal context as much as it does in a legal context. For example,
a lawyer will often reserve judgement on a political issue being discussed in a social context unless he or
she has a degree of expertise on the issue and is aware of the justification for all relevant positions.
The second limb is that lawyers connect everything. The law is all about relationships — that is, the
connection between things. Lawyers are always striving to make connections between all manner of things:
evidence, questions, concepts, entities, people, rules, principles, arguments, policies, criteria, conclusions,
and so on. When solving legal problems specifically, lawyers are primarily concerned with the relationship

4 PART 1 Knowing
work can be challenging because it requires you to be able to empathise with clients in order to understand
their needs and concerns. It also requires you to be able to objectively analyse those needs and concerns
in order to identify the relevant legal issues that must be managed or dealt with, and to apply the relevant
law to those issues in order to develop a workable response within the confines of the law that is in the
client’s interests.

Lawyers give clear advice about complicated problems


We are living in a world that is becoming increasingly complex. From a global perspective, there is
now much more interaction between countries, their people and their laws. In Australia, on a domestic
level, the developing complexity of society has meant that the law has also become more complex and
often very technical. The legal system itself is very complicated with many different layers and a high
level of formality. Lawyers working in this complex environment need to be able to understand the
relevant law and the system in which it can be used, analyse the law in the context of the particular
problems being considered and apply the law to the client’s issues so as to resolve their problems as
effectively as possible. In addition, a lawyer needs to be able to communicate the results of these analytical
processes with the client — and often with a range of other audiences such as other lawyers, courts
and tribunals.
People come to lawyers for their expert knowledge and ability to work with the complexity of the law
and the legal system. Clients have different levels of expertise and knowledge of the law themselves. Some
clients are quite sophisticated in their understanding of the legal problems they need help with and their
legal context. Others have little understanding of, or perhaps even misunderstand, what the law prohibits or
requires. A lawyer must be able to talk with and advise the client at the appropriate level of sophistication.
If a client cannot understand their lawyer’s advice, they will be unable to make an informed choice about
how to proceed.
As a lawyer you will therefore need exceptional communication skills. Good oral communication skills
are critical for working in face-to-face contexts: talking with clients, understanding their issues and taking
their instructions. Good written communication skills are critical for communicating effectively by letter
and by email, and for writing clear legal documents. As a lawyer you will need to be able to speak and
write clearly and with precision. The most intelligent lawyer in the world would be ineffective if they
cannot communicate well with others and help them to understand what they are saying. Exceptional legal
communication — in both written and verbal forms — is an art that you will continue to develop throughout
your legal career.

Lawyers are negotiators and advocates


In addition to their exceptional communication skills, lawyers also help people by using negotiation skills
to solve legal problems and resolve legal disputes using discussion and compromise, and advocacy skills
to stand up for the client and argue on their behalf using the law. By fulfilling the roles of negotiator and
advocate as required, lawyers help their clients to get the results they want, avoid detrimental outcomes or
come to an acceptable compromise in a difficult situation.
Negotiation skills are used daily in legal practice. Lawyers negotiate with other lawyers and other
parties on behalf of their clients, they negotiate in dispute resolution environments such as mediations
and conciliations and they even assist clients to negotiate their way through the legal system itself. As
explained earlier, advocacy skills are also used in negotiation. This is because, when negotiating, a lawyer
is always representing the best interests of their clients and seeking to obtain the best outcome for them
through persuasion and advocacy. Advocacy skills are also used in more formal environments such as
courts and tribunals. It is important to remember that advocacy on behalf of a client does not always mean
being adversarial. Good lawyers are not aggressive and combative unless it is absolutely necessary to serve
the best interests of the client.

8 PART 1 Knowing
In this section we begin by explaining some of the important changes to the practice of law and the
delivery of legal services. We then examine the differences between the two traditional career paths
available to law graduates: becoming a solicitor and becoming a barrister. Finally, we describe the various
work sectors in which a law graduate may find employment: the private sector, the public sector, the
community sector, and alternative career options such as the academy. This list is certainly not exhaustive
in terms of identifying all of your options on graduation. There are many other job opportunities for
legal practitioners, and many law graduates end up using their knowledge of the law and their practical
legal skills in a range of non-legal careers including senior management, diplomacy, journalism, business
ownership and policy development.

A changing profession
The legal profession is undergoing significant change in Australia and abroad. The key drivers of change
are the internationalisation of legal practice, the increasing diversification of legal service delivery models
and the digital disruption of the legal practice.
Internationalisation is transforming the practice of law in numerous ways. The clients served by legal
practitioners are no longer restricted to the jurisdiction in which the legal practitioner happens to be
working. Lawyers and law firms advise and represent individual clients based in other countries and
organisations that themselves operate across multiple jurisdictions. Also, the transactions in which the
clients engage and the disputes in which the clients require advice and representation increasingly cross
borders and require the resolution and application of an array of different laws.
The last few years have seen the emergence of a wide range of new businesses that have identified ways
to deliver legal services in innovative new ways. These new business models are generally referred to
collectively as ‘NewLaw’, an expression intended to cover any model, process or tool that is designed to
provide legal services in a significantly different manner to the traditional means of delivery. There is no
doubt that it is an exciting time to be a lawyer for anyone with an entrepreneurial spirit!
Recent advances in technology are significantly changing the way legal information is communicated,
authenticated, gathered and analysed. The so-called ‘digital disruption’ of legal practice has become the
subject of many conferences, law classes and water cooler discussions. At present, disruptive technologies
driving the automation of repetitive tasks are creating the biggest waves. The use of artificial intelligence
(AI) to provide legal services is also a hot topic in legal circles, and many law firms are already adopting
AI technologies to boost efficiency.
All of these changes to the legal profession have prompted some people to claim that legal professionals
may in fact become redundant at some point in the future. The majority of commentators, however,
continually emphasise those aspects of legal services delivery that can’t be replicated by technology —
delivery in an empathetic, commercially realistic and ethical manner in the context of a genuine human
connection between the lawyer and the client. We encourage you as a ‘new lawyer’ to remain positive and
embrace the opportunities that flow with the changing tides.

Traditional career paths


In Australia, the practising legal profession has two branches: barristers and solicitors. In New South
Wales and Queensland there is a clearly ‘split’ profession, meaning that legal practitioners must practise
as either a solicitor or a barrister. In Western Australia there is a clearly ‘fused’ profession, meaning that
legal practitioners are entitled to practise as both. In other jurisdictions, including Victoria, the line is not
easily drawn, and you will find conflicting opinions on whether the profession is split or fused. Generally,
if there are separate admission requirements for the two occupational groups, it is characterised as a
split profession.

CHAPTER 1 The life of a lawyer 11


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RESPUESTA DE VASQUIRAN
INTERROGANDO
Á FLAMIANO
Bien me plaze hauerte oydo lo
que dizes. Veamos agora,
Flamiano, ¿tu mal e tu passion no
es e nace del demasiado amor
que a Belisena tienes? Si. Tú no
dizes qu'el bien que la quieres en
estremo te trae en lo que estas?
Si. Tu desseo que es galardon de
tus seruicios? Si. Y este galardon
que desseas que se ver cumplida
tu voluntad? Si. De qué te
quexas, de que su voluntad va
lexos de lo que la tuya queria? Si.
Tú no quieres, segun dizes y es
razon, más a ella que a ti? Si.
Pues desta manera o tú no sabes
lo que quieres o es falso lo que
dizes. No dizes, como es, que en
ella está el fin e medio comienço
de toda la virtud, e nobleça e
perficion? Si. Pues si tal es, como
es, e tu voluntad e desseo
fuessen buenos, no
desconformaria dello su voluntad,
por consiguiente, o ella no es qual
tú dizes, o tu desseo es malo; si
es malo, ¿cómo dizes que bien la
quieres e le desseas mal?
Hagamos agora que tu voluntad
fuesse buena y la suya buena
como es, no dizes que la quieres
mas que a ti? Pues si más que a
ti la quieres, razon es que quieras
más lo qu'ella quiere que lo que tú
quieres, pues si lo qu'ella quiere,
quieres, no ternás de quexarte; no
teniendo quexa no ternás mal, no
teniendo mal, ganado haure yo la
question.

FLAMIANO A VASQUIRAN
No me contenta lo que dizes
porque no satisfaze a lo que digo;
yo te digo que ninguna cosa se
haze sin esperança de algun fin,
como vemos claramente.
Dexando agora lo de arriba que
no es razon que en ello
hablemos, pero en lo de acá;
¿porqué seruimos al rey a quien
deuida obligacion nos obliga? ¿no
le seruimos por lo que somos
obligados? Si. Si pues le somos
obligados, ¿porqué nos
quexamos si de nuestros
seruicios algun seruicio no nos
haze, e si de nuestros fauores
algun galardon no alcançamos? Y
por consiguiente de nuestros
mismos padres lo mismo
queremos e si no lo hazen lo
mismo quexamos, y aun como el
vulgo dize, a los santos no querria
seruir si galardon no esperasse,
pues para seruir a estos no nos
fallesce amor, pero si satisfecha
no es nuestra voluntad no nos
falta quexa, e quanto mal
nuestros seruicios e voluntad han
sido, tanto más nos da pena e
congoxa lo poco que nos es
agradecido. Luego ¿qué hare
qu'en satisfacion de lo que bien
quiero soy aborrecido que es el
mayor mal, en pago de mis
seruicios e passion no alcanço
mas de disfauores, menosprecios,
desdenes e mill ultrajes? Pues si
mi querer no puede mudarse, mi
passion no puede afloxar,
esperança de más no la espero,
remedio no le hay ni le hallo, qué
mayor mal quieres quel mio?

VASQUIRAN A FLAMIANO
Harto es poco tu mal si más razon
no tienes de la que dizes para él;
muy lexos van tus palabras e
razones de tus congoxas, pero o
hagamos que sea como dizes, o
llevemos las cosas por razon;
digamos lo que dizes que sea
razon, que sin la razon que nos
obliga seruir al rey deuamos
esperar mercedes e satisfacion
de nuestros seruicios e hagamos
ygual este seruir con lo que a
Belisena sirues; yo quiero que
assi sea como dizes e ansi te
mostraré como en una manera no
tienes razon de quexarte y en otra
te mostraré como eres satisfecho.
Digo que no has razon desta
manera. Los seruicios que tú al
rey hazes en que le sirues? O le
sirues en sus guerras y
conquistas en guarda e defension
de su persona y estado, o en
acrecentamiento de sus reynos
con peligro de la tuya, o le sirues
en la paz acompañandole e
siguiendo su corte con mucha
costa que te cuesta, de manera
que todos tus seruicios son
buenos e merecen hauer bien.
Pues veamos a Belisena si la
sirues en nada de esto. Digo que
no. ¿Pues en qué la sirues?
¿Sabes en qué? En apocar su
honrra, en alterar su fama, en
poner en juyzio de mal
sospechantes su bondad, en
todas las cosas que peor juyzio le
pueden hazer, en dessear por tu
bien su mal, o por tu voluntad su
mengua. Y quiereslo ver? El
mayor bien e mas honesto que en
tu desseo pudiesse hauer seria
que sin cargo alcanzasses lo que
de otra dama que ygual te fuesse
alcançar podrias; pues eso no se
podria hazer sin que ella de su
estado al tuyo baxase, luego mal
le desseas. Podrias dessear que
Dios te subiesse a tanto que
ygual le fuesses? La pena que
desto recibirias no te la da ella
sino lo que en ti falta. Luego sin
razon te quexarias. Tornando al
proposito digo que si al rey
siruiesses en cosa que le
perjudicasse, ni él te lo deueria
agradecer, ni tú quexarte de su
ingratitud. Pero aun de otra
manera digo que eres satisfecho
de lo que te quexas; bien sabes tú
que hay muchas maneras de
seruicios en las quales hay
algunas que en la misma obra
dellas está el galardon, estas son
aquellas de que obrandolas
ganamos honrra, pues que esta
es la cosa mas desseada como
sea señalarse el hombre en una
batalla de campo o de tierra, en
otra semejante afrenta hecha en
seruicio de señor o persona tal o
de que el que la haze, assi por
señalarse, como por la calidad de
aquel a quien sirue, queda
honrrado. Pues parecete a ti que
solo este nombre sea poca gloria
e fama e honrra? tú sabes que es
mucha ser seruidor de quien eres
siendo más publico que oculto, no
pueden tanto merecer tus
teruicios que esto no sea más; no
seran jamas tan grandes tus
passiones e tormentos que esta
gloria mayor no sea; ningun dia
puedes tanto penar que su vista
no te dé mas descanso, ninguna
congoxa te puede dar tu desseo
que tu pensamiento no te dé
mayor gloria. Mi mal es de doler
por que en él no hay remedio; en
los plazeres agenos yo peno; en
las passiones e males de los
otros, los mios se doblan, y esto
te basta para que esta question
baste, e acabo.

RESPUESTA DE FLAMIANO
Poco a poco me echarias de la
tierra con tus argumentos de
logico, ante que lo fagas quiero
tornar al comienço de nuestra
question e digo que nunca mis
males menos de grandes los
senti, ni nunca los tuyos más de
pequeños los juzgué; desta
manera que a mi se me figura
como nunca otra cosa conoci, que
mal es que ningun mal con el mio
se yguala.
La lengua es vn instrumento en
qu'el dolor del coraçon suena, e
desta manera la mia haze el son
que oyes. A ti como el plazer has
perdido figurasete que tienes
mucha raçon e que pues que la
raçon es mucha que la causa es
grande; assi que te quexas como
quien mucho bien ha perdido, yo
me quexo como quien mucho mal
ha passado e passa y el bien
nunca vió. Pues si tú has habido
bien e grande, yo mal e grande, tú
has sabido qué es bien, yo sé que
es mal; agora tú sabes qué es
bien e mal; yo mal e mal; claro
está qué más mal es el mio que el
tuyo. A mi me parece qu'es tanta
mi pena que con el más penado
trocaria, creyendo que no es tanta
la suya. Tú goçando tu bien tan
contento estauas, que con el más
gozoso no trocaras, creyendo que
no hauia más bien que goçar. Yo
querria saber a qué sabe por
juzgar tu perdida quanto es
grande, porque a mi se me figura
que el mayor daño mio es el mal
con que tú lo hazes menor,
diziendo que pues nunca tuve
bien, que no puedo sentir qué es
mal; yo digo que harto mal es
saber qué es bien, despues
passar mal, pero mayor es nunca
saber qué es sino mal, y aun te
digo vna cosa, pues los consuelos
que tú me das bastarian para vn
rustico que nunca de ningun bien
gozó e poco del le pareceria
mucho, o para un grosero que en
su entendimiento no entra ni lo
que dessear se deue, ni lo que
penar se puede, que este con
cualquier cosa que le acaeciesse
seria satisfecho como tú quieres
que yo haga, pero para mi que
desseo lo que dessearse puede
de bien e padezco lo que padecer
se puede de mal, no me parece
que yerro como dizes, ante que
tengo raçon de llorar de mis
males su dolor e de los bienes
agenos su enuidia. E assi estó
puesto en el estremo que vees
para no poder venir en
conocimiento de tu raçon, porque
todo lo que hablamos tiene dos
sentidos; tú les das el que te
parece ó sientes, yo les doy el
que parece o siento, e assi seria
insoluble nuestra porfia. Ponerla
en manos de quien la determine
no la consiente su causa, mejor
seria dexarla suspensa.

RESPUESTA DE VASQUIRAN
No quiero, Flamiano, que
suspensa quede, sino que se
determine e que tú seas el juez, e
no quiero sino en breve darte la
determinacion que has de hazer,
y es que juzgues qual de nosotros
más mal padece, que esto es
todo el fin desta question. Tu mal
no puede ser mucho sino siendo
grande el amor que a Belisena
tienes, e si tal no es, no es tal tu
mal como dizes. Si tal no es,
como dizes, fingido seria, e assi
seria mayor el mio. Pues si tú
quieres mucho como yo creo e
creo que tu passion es grande,
mas digo que la mia es mayor. Tú
dizes que querrias saber a qué
sabe mi mal por mejor juzgarlo;
bien sé que no lo dizes por lo que
agora yo padezco sino por lo que
he gozado. Mal has hablado,
porque no podrias saber lo vno e
lo otro sino passando por todo,
pero pues que dicho lo has,
sobr'esto quiero hazerte juez de la
causa. Hagamos agora que la
uentura te ayudasse para que de
Belisena gozasses ni mas ni
menos que yo de Violina; que tu
gozo y el tiempo e vuestras
voluntades conformes fuessen
tanto e con tanto contentamiento
como el nuestro fue, con tal
condicion que Dios dende agora
te contentasse, e que a cabo de
otro tanto tiempo tu señora en tu
poder muriesse en tu presencia y
tú sin ella quedasses como yo sin
la mia he quedado qual me vees,
aceptarlo yas? Di la verdad e
conoceras que si mi gozo fue
grande, que mi mal es grande, e
que si tú agora tan gran gozo
alcançabas que seria mayor tu
bien que agora es tu mal; pues
desta manera quando tan gran
bien perdiesses, quál seria mayor
mal, el que entonces sentirias en
perderlo, o el que agora sientes
en dessearlo? No te quiero mas
dezir; juzga lo que querras, que si
esto niegas, quanto has dicho
negarás e seria fengido de lo que
padeces.

RESPUESTA DE FLAMIANO
Mejor seria, Vasquiran, qu'esta
question no houiessemos
començado, que no que a este
paso houiessemos llegado,
porque temo que la ponçoña de
nuestras passiones nuestras
amistades alteren.
No puedo responderte a esta
partida porque en mi boca no
puede caber tal raçon, ni quisiera
que en la tuya houiera cabido; no
ha hecho Dios los dias de
Belisena para que en nuestras
lenguas termino les pongamos,
no por comparacion como agora
has hecho. Baste esto, que
todauia me parece segund lo que
siento que es verdad lo que digo;
creo que lo mismo hazes. El mal
de los infernados tenemos, qu'el
menos penado trocaria con el que
más pena, juzgando mayor la
suya que la del otro; yo me refiero
a lo que he dicho e tú no menos.
Dexemos nuestro processo
abierto, determinenlo los que lo
leyeren, pues que ya está
determinado que cada vno de
nosotros tiene tan poca alegria,
que no nos cabe llorar duelos
ajenos.
Mudemos la platica en otras
cosas, que pues que tan poco
plazer tenemos, pesar no nos
faltará sin que le busquemos.
Bien sé que sabes que tu mal
más que a nadie me duele, bien
sé que mi descanso mas que otro
lo desseas. El dia que fuymos a
casa de la señora duquesa me
parece que te vi hablar con la
señora Yssiana; no me soy
acordado agora de pedirte qué
passaste con ella; agora que me
acuerdo, te aviso que te guardes,
que tiene mala mano. Podria ser
que si mucho la mirasses, que
como agora de tu mal plañes que
del mio llorasses, e quiça
entonces juzgarias de nuestra
question lo que agora no
conosces.

RESPUESTA DE VASQUIRAN
Bien sabia que a tal estrecho te
hauia de traer como has llegado.
En tu alteracion conozco lo que
en mi passion conoces, hacerte
quiero contento, mudasme de
nuevas, quiero te responder a lo
que pides. Lo que con essa
señora passé, fue que
hallandome la señora Belisena,
ella se llegó con nosotros e
dixome que me esforçase e me
allegrase, que no juzgaba menos
discrecion en mi seso, que dolor
en mi pesar, e que la fortuna me
pudo quitar lo que pudo, pero no
la virtud que en mí quedaua que
era más. Yo le respondi que Dios
le diesse tanta parte del bien en la
tierra, quanto de su hermosura le
hauia dado de la del cielo, pues
que estaua en ella más aparejado
el merecer para ello, que en mí el
consuelo para ser alegre, e que
bien sabia yo que si possible
fuera que en mí pudiera haber de
remedio para mi tristeça
esperança, que della a solas la
esperaua, pero que no solo me
faltaua remedio, mas esperança
dél. Respondiome que no hauia
cosa sin remedio viniendo, e que
lo mucho que le dolia verme tal, y
el desseo que tenia de verme con
menos tristeça le offrecia a
consentirme que la siruiesse, e
que dello seria contenta, e que
assi me aceptaua por su seruidor
con prometimiento de
fauorecerme de manera que sin
perjuicio suyo que algo de mi
congoxa afloxaria. Yo le respondi
que lo hauia por impossible. E por
no poderle más responder al
presente, la enbié despues estas
coplas sobre el caso mesmo.

COPLAS QUE VASQUIRAN


EMBIÓ
A YSSIANA SOBRE QUE LE
MANDÓ QUE LE SIRUIESSE
Tan llagada está mi vida
de los males de mi mal
que por ser la causa tal
no ay do quepa otra herida,
de manera
que si mi mal tal no fuera,
solo veros
me forçara de quereros
por cuya causa viuiera.
Mas estoy como el herido
que la raçon e natura
le descubren en la cura
no poder ser guarecido,
bien que cierto
vuestra beldad e concierto
daran vida
a quien la tenga perdida,
pero ya passo de muerto.
Porque si'l morir recrece
do la vida se dessea,
con la muerte se pelea
pues llegado s'aborrece,
pero quando
vive el viuo desseando
s'el morir,
aquel tal es de dezir
que es más que muerto
penando.
Desta suerte, dama,
muestro,
siendo vuestras gracias tales,
que la sobra de mis males
no m'an dexado ser vuestro,
ni soy mio,
porque mi franco albedrio
es verdad
que no'stá en mi libertad
mas está en el daño mio.
Pues si vos no me sanays
yo no quiero guarecer,
no quiero querer poder
aunque vos, dama, querays;
¿sabeys porqué?
Porque ya murió mi fe,
e pues no es viua
no será jamas captiua
sino de quien siempre fue.
No, porque mi desuentura
con su mucha crueldad
a mi fe e mi libertad
las metió en la sepultura
con aquella
por quien viue mi querella
assi penando,
yo la muerte desseando
más que no viuir sin ella.

LO QUE SE CONCERTO
ACABADO LA HABLA
ENTRE ELLOS DOS
Assi pussieron silencio por
entonces en su contienda,
mudando en otras cosas su
passatiempo, e dende a pocos
dias, estando vn dia sobre tabla
razonando el vno con el otro,
Flamiano con muy ahincados
ruegos rogo a Vasquiran que
quissiese ser contento que los
dos tuviessen vna tela de justa
real, pues que avnque cosa de
fiesta e plazer fuesse para los
atribulados del mal que ellos lo
estauan, tanto para publicar sus
apassionados dolores daua
aparejo como a los alegres e
contentos de plazer les abria
camino. Porque no holgauan
menos los vnos en manifestar su
mal, que los otros en publicar su
bien con sus intenciones, e que
en esto no solo él haria señalada
gracia e merced, mas aun a todas
las damas haria gran seruicio. A
lo qual Vasquiran le respondio:
Verdaderamente, Flamiano, más
aparejo hay en mi para llorar
como vees, que no para justar
como quieres, pero pues que el
amistad nuestra me forço en tal
tiempo venir a verte, e el amor
que te tengo me obliga a
complazerte en todo lo que
possible me será. Assi que
ordena lo que te parecera, que de
aquello sere contento, no en esto
que es poca cosa, mas donde la
vida e honrra en todo peligro se
pussiese lo seria. En especial que
yo recibo tanta pena en ver la que
con la mia te doy, que desseo
hallar algo con que te pueda
complazer. Flamiano
agradeciendoselo mucho,
respondio: Si tan complido te
hiziera la fortuna de ventura como
de virtud, jamas viuieras
descontento. E assi los dos
caualgaron disfraçados e se
fueron a casa del cardenal de
Brujas que era vn notable
cauallero e mancebo, e tan
inclinado a las cosas de la
caualleria, aunque perlado,
quanto en el mundo lo houiesse,
e assi llegados a su posada,
retraydos todos tres a solas, su
pensamiento e a lo que eran
ydos, le hizieron saber, de lo qual
él holgo demasiadamente. Pues
en la misma hora, todos tres
vestidos de mascara, al palacio
del visorey se fueron. El qual con
mucho plazer los recibio, e assi
todos quatro en la camara de su
guarda ropa sentados a vna
ventana que sale sobre la mar,
hablaron todo el caso porque alli
eran venidos, e con mucho
contentamiento e plazer fue dello
contento. E hauiendo assi estado
vna gran pieça de la tarde, los
tres se tornaron a casa del
cardenal, donde cenaron con
muchos otros caualleros que alli
acostumbrauan venir a comer, y
en la cena se publicó la tela que
querian tener, lo qual puso en
mucho plazer e regocijo a todos.
E hauiendo cenado, en presencia
de todos, se ordenó el cartel con
las condiciones siguientes e
diosse a vn albardan que la
pregonasse.

LAS CONDICIONES DEL


CARTEL
Dado fue el cartel a vn albardan
para que lo pregonasse, el qual
con muchos atabales e trompetas
e menestriles, fue publicado en
todos aquellos lugares que les
parecio que publicarse deuia. En
el qual cartel se contenian las
condiciones siguientes:
Primeramente se daua al que
mas gentil cauallero a la tela
saliesse con paramento e cimera,
vna cadena de oro de dozientos
ducados. Dauase mas seys canas
de brocado al cauallero que con
lanças de fiesta mejores quatro
carreras haria, e que no pudiesse
justar a este prez quien al otro no
tirasse, esto es, sin paramentos ni
cimera. Dauase mas a la dama
que mejor e mas galanamente
vestida aquel dia a la fiesta
saliesse, vn diamante de cien
ducados de peso[288]. Mas al
galan que a la noche a la fiesta en
casa del señor visorey saldria
mejor e mas galan vestido, vn rico
rubí. A este precio de la noche los
tablajeros tirauan. Fueron juezes
de los caualleros el señor Visrey y
el principe de Salusana y el
almirante Vilander y el conde
Camposalado. Juezes de las
damas fueron la señora Reyna e
Nobleuisa e la señora duquesa de
Meliano e la duquesa de
Francouiso, todas tres viudas.
Tuuose el renque dia de Santiago,
que hauia quarenta dias desd'el
dia que el cartel se publicó hasta
aquel dia. En el qual tiempo todos
los caualleros e damas se
adereçaron de la manera que
adelante se dirá. De lo que en
este tiempo se siguio ninguna
cosa aqui se cuenta hasta el dia
de la tela.

COMO LAS DAMAS SALIERON


EL DIA
DE LA TELA
En el dia de la fiesta la señora
Reyna con sus damas, e la
señora duquesa de Francouiso se
vinieron a comer con la señora
duquesa de Meliano, porque assi
juntas se fuessen a la tela, donde
houo muchos galanes e muy
ricamente vestidos que hasta alli
las acompañaron e de alli hasta la
tela. De los quales atauios aqui
no se haze mencion, saluo que
hauiendo comido todas tres
caualgaron con sus damas e
salieron desta manera. La señora
Reyna salio vestida de negro
como siempre va; verdad es que
en vna gorra y en vnas mangas
de vna saya de terciopelo que
lleuaua, hauia muchas pieças de
oro e joyeles muy ricos e muchas
perlas.
Lleuaua vn cauallo blanco con
vna guarnicion rica e veynte
moços de espuelas vestidos con
sayos de grana guarnecidos de
terciopelo negro sobre raso
amarillo, con jubones de damasco
naranjado, vna calça negra e otra
azul e amarilla.
La señora duquesa de Meliano
salio su persona vestida de negro
con vn cauallo morcillo con vna
guarnicion de terciopelo negro;
doze moços d'espuelas vestidos
con sayos morados guarnecidos
de raso pardillo. Jubones de raso
negro con vna calça negra, otra
negra e morada.
La señora duquesa de Francouiso
salio vestida de negro. Los moços
d'espuelas vestidos todos de
leonado.
Salio la señora Belisena con vna
saya de brocado raso blanco
cubierta de raso negro, cortado
todo el raso de vnas cortaduras
muy espessas que se hazia dellas
vna obra como vnos manojos,
atadas todas las cuchilladas con
vnos torçales de oro, e de seda
encarnada con los cabos hechos
de perlas; vn collar de oro hechas
las pieças a manera de las
cortaduras de la saya, esmaltadas
todas las pieças de negro. Hauia
en la saya en cada pieça de
terciopelo vna pieça de oro de
martillo que hazia la obra de las
cortaduras, vna gorra de raso
encarnado guarnecido de las
pieças del collar; vn cauallo
blanco con vna guarnicion de
plata toda esmaltada con muchos
floques de oro y encarnado que
salian por las pieças de la
guarnicion muy largos. Doze
moços d'espuelas vestidos de
amarillo y encarnado.
La señora Yssiana sacó vna saya
de terciopelo leonado e brocado
pardillo hecha a tableros como vn
marro; estauan las costuras
juntadas con pestañas de tafetan
amarillo. Hauia en cada pieça de
la seda e del brocado vna cifra
trocada de lo vno en lo otro
bordadas con cordones de plata.
Vna gorra de raso leonado llena
de cabos de oro hincados a
manera de vn erizo, muy llena
con collar de pieças de manera
delas cifras.
Sacó la señora Graciana vna
saya de raso azul con vna reja
encima de terciopelo azul sobre
pestañas de raso amarillo, e con
vnas lazadas de vnas madexas
de hilo de oro que ataua las
juntas de la reja. Vna gorra de
terciopelo azul llena delas mismas
madexas trauadas vnas de otras;
vn collar hecho de madexas de
hilo de oro tirado muy rico.
Todas las otras damas de la
señora duquesa salieron vestidas
con saya de raso morado, con
barras de brocado negro sobre
pestañas de tafetan blanco; con

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