In conversation with Pat Williams (barrister)
Pat Williams (or Patty as we know him) is a dear friend of ours and fellow Novocastrian, and is also officially the first barrister to be featured on our blog!
Pat works at Newcastle Chambers (in Newcastle) and at 13 St James Hall Chambers (in Sydney), practising across civil and family jurisdictions, and is also the Secretary of the Newcastle Bar Association.
Pat speaks about how he came to go to the bar (and no, we don’t mean for drinks), about his most hilarious exchange in court, and why it is important to be aware of burnout in the legal profession.
TLC: What made you want to study law?
PW: It is difficult to articulate this with precision. I think I was attracted to it for a series of reasons. I had always been interested in the suspense and drama of litigation. I was also engaged by the intellectual challenges which I thought it would provide. But there is also something that appealed to me about both the combination of logic and compassion which often sits behind the law, and its endeavour (often unsuccessful at a practical level but nevertheless worthwhile) to actually arrive at an objectively just resolution of human problems.
As I think a little further, I am also pretty sure that I had not yet figured out what I wanted to do at the end of uni, and a law degree provided avenues to a variety of different career options….
TLC: Tell us about your journey to how you got to where you are
PW: I think that I have been the recipient of a deal of good luck in my legal career to date.
Coming out of university I wanted to stay in Newcastle (where I had gone to High School and Uni), but I did not think that the law firms in the city would provide me with the kind of experience that I wanted. At the conclusion of fourth year I started to apply for some summer clerkships, mainly in Sydney. I recall that a series of the clerkship applications were due in a period in which my girlfriend (now longsuffering wife…) and I had gone on holiday to Hawaii. Whilst she was enjoying some form of tropical cocktail one afternoon, I was engaged in the mind-numbing task of finalising applications for clerkship positions. As I was doing so I discovered that Moray & Agnew (a mid-tier commercial and insurance firm) was looking for students to work two days per week over the summer holidays and throughout 5th year at their Newcastle office. I ended up applying for and getting that job, which set in train a series of events which has essentially resulted in me remaining primarily in Newcastle to date.
I joined Newcastle Morays at the end of fourth year and went into their insurance section, where I remained full time after graduation. I was again somewhat fortunate in that I came to work with Matthew Huckerby, a partner at Moray & Agnew whom I got on well with and who proved very supportive. The position was fortunate in a different way as well. Much of the insurance practice at Morays was at that time focussed upon workers compensation and motor vehicle accidents… interesting enough at first but in my view a little drab over the course of time… However, Matt’s practice involved handling just about every other form of insurance claim that walked through the door. As a result we had a variety of different types of mainly personal injury claims to defend, but ranging from circumstances of a trip and fall to aviation and maritime accidents. The result was exposure not only to constant and complicated litigation practice, but also to a variety of areas of law.
I remained at Morays for approximately 5 years in that practice. As a result of that I was fortunate to meet some exceptional people, including and especially Mr Peter Cummings SC, who became something of a mentor and over time a very close friend. I had long harboured ambitions to make the jump to the bar at some point, and it was Peter who was of greatest influence in encouraging me both to do it, and to do it at an early stage (approx. 4 years’ experience as a solicitor). I ultimately made the decision to transition to the bar, but gave Morays 12 months notice of my intended plan.
The transition to the bar is of itself an excellent experience, with an opportunity to meet some exceptional people who are doing the same thing, but also to begin to meet some very senior people within the profession.
Having moved to the bar the nature of my practice has changed considerably. Nearly half of my practice is family law, a field in which I had no experience as a solicitor. I continue to practice in personal injury substantially, but also a lot in commercial disputes and constructions disputes, and occasionally in wills and estate matters. I was fortunate enough to have my first tilt in the High Court last year, under the excellent leadership of Neil Williams SC, in a case in which I had worked as a solicitor at Morays Newcastle (which goes to show, don’t burn your bridges!!). I continue to find myself in a challenging and diverse practice, though over the course of time the nature of the litigation in which I am involved is becoming more extended and complex, with higher stakes. It’s good fun.
I cannot say that any of the foregoing was planned by me to a level of detail. In that regard I have always been someone who plans (or sets goals) at a broad rather than particularised level. So, in general I wanted to practice as a solicitor in litigation and then ultimately go to the bar, but I did not plan to the level of choosing particular areas of law, or setting myself particular timeframes within which I wished to achieve certain things. In my view that had some real benefits for me, in that it has resulted in opportunities that I may perhaps not otherwise have had, or may have disregarded. To take two examples, I suspect that had I been more detailed (or less flexible) in my plan I would have practiced in Sydney post university. I suspect I also would not currently be practising in family law, something which I find both enjoyable and rewarding on a series of levels. So, I am a fan of setting a general direction, and then taking opportunities as and when they arise.
TLC: What is the funniest or weirdest moment you've had in your legal career?
PW: In the dizzying heights of the Taree District Court we were defending an action by a plaintiff who suffered quite severe injuries. The plaintiff was the neighbour of our client. Her dog had escaped from her backyard and crossed into our client’s yard where it became engaged in a fight through the wires of a compound in which our client’s dog was kept (largely due to the fact that it was pretty large and didn’t mind a good bite…). The plaintiff had come to rescue her dog and intervened in the dog fight, as a result of which she had been bitten several times by our client’s dog. She brought an action under the Companion Animals Act seeking personal injury damages.
We had a judicial officer (who shall remain nameless) who is somewhat infamous for making inappropriate remarks about various things on the bench. During the course of the proceedings he actually picked his nose on the bench at one point…. but, leaving that to one side, during the course of the plaintiff’s examination in chief by her barrister (who I shall call Mr Smith), the plaintiff was endeavouring to give evidence about the vicious nature of our client’s dog. An exchange occurred to the following effect, made better by the fact that it was almost entirely irrelevant to the issues in dispute:
Plaintiff: It was a horrible dog. It was really nasty. It used to, you know, like hide and then run at the fence barking to try and scare me!
Judge: Well Mr Smith, she can’t give that evidence.
Smith: I’m sorry, Your Honour?
Judge: Well Mr Smith she can’t give evidence of the intention of the dog. She can’t say it was trying to scare her.
Smith: No, your Honour is right. She can’t give evidence of the dog’s intention.
Judge: The dog doesn’t even know that.
Smith: I’m sorry, your Honour?
Judge: The dog doesn’t know what it intends, it’s a dog.
Smith: Well I’m not sure that we can go quite so far as that, Your Honour. The dog may know what it intends.
At this point the judge leans over the bench, frowns, and says the following in his most deep and severe voice…
Judge: The difference between a man and a dog, Mr Smith, is that a man knows what he thinks, and a dog does not!!
TLC: What is your one piece of advice to law students of today?
PW: My single piece of advice is to beware burnout and working too hard. There is no doubt that working hard is a good thing, and a necessity to achieve and advance. However, it can be taken too far. In particular, there is a culture among many professionals within the industry to see working exceptional hours or weekends as a virtue in and of itself. It is not. It is corrosive to relationships and health. Working hard is important when there is work to be done, or where it is for a proper identifiable purpose (such as meeting a dealing of some description). It is, however, a road to personal disaster to spend extended hours in the office simply for the sake of it. I would not encourage anyone to buy into the proposition that advancement within any firm requires one to be in the office for longer than is strictly necessary to get the required work done. If that is the culture of a firm you are looking at, I would query whether that is a firm at which you really wish to work (after all, if you comply and ultimately make partner, aren’t you just going to have to keep doing the same??). The measure of your value to a firm should be the quality and quantity of your output, not how long you remain at a desk or in the office (often inefficiently). So I would encourage students to work hard, but smart, and not to adopt the concept that working long hours is itself admirable or something to be achieved.