COCAINE RIFE?

THE annual St Patrick's Day bash at Equity Chambers is the Victorian
Bar's party of the year. Hundreds of lawyers cram the
unair-conditioned third floor corridor of Bourke Street's historic
Equity Trustees Building to drink, flirt -- and regale each other
with courtroom war stories.

"It's a major-league piss-up -- people vomiting in people's rooms,"
said one regular.

"It's close, cramped and hot -- and everyone is absolutely blind by
the end of the night," said a former attendee. "If you don't drink,
it's fascinating for about 10 minutes. If you do, you could stay
eight hours. Basically it's a whole lot of barristers and judges
talking about their work."

This party, which always features a bagpiper and an emotional tribute
to a former chambers member who has died or been made a judge, is
highly symbolic of aspects of Victorian bar culture. It celebrates
the criminal bar's Irish roots and Equity Chambers' traditional
commitment to the "defence of the underdog". It underlines
barristers' obsession with their work. And it suggests that alcohol,
rather than cocaine, remains the party drug of choice for most barristers.

Throughout last week news reports suggested that a woman might be
charged with administering a drug of dependence to prominent
Melbourne barrister Peter Hayes, QC, who was found unconscious in his
Adelaide hotel room 10 days ago. Criminal barrister Peter Faris, QC,
then went public with allegations that cocaine use was widespread in
senior echelons of the bar.

But his claims left most senior barristers reeling with disbelief and
scorn. The bar has its share of social problems, they said. But drugs
are at the bottom of the list, far behind alcohol, workaholism,
infidelity and lingering sexism.

So how is the culture of the Victorian bar best defined?

Chairman of the Criminal Bar Association Stephen Shirrefs, QC,
rejects generalisations. There is no single "bar culture" but a
"diversity"of cultures, he said. The St Patrick's Day party
epitomises the criminal bar, whose culture has little in common with
that of "black letter" commercial lawyers who lunch at the Australia Club.

"The great thing about the bar is that it allows the character of the
individual to flourish -- it tolerates a Faris and it tolerates all
sorts of people who are really 'out there' in the community -- and
who, in other professions, would be jumped on and held back."

"Huge stress", he said, is the key aspect of a job where court
performance can seal a client's fate. But alcohol, not cocaine, was
the way that many barristers let off steam after a big case.

"The buck stops with the barrister," said Victorian Bar Council
chairman Michael Shand, QC.

"Advocacy is a public art, which plays out its effects, good and bad,
for all to see."

Barristers often take on their clients' causes with great intensity,
said Fiona McLeod, SC. They take to heart the rigorous criticism they
may get from judges or opponents, but find different ways to manage
the resultant stress. "Some play golf. Some, like me, go home and
hold their children."

But Ms McLeod dismissed talk of cocaine at the bar as "offensive
nonsense". "It suggests we are a bunch of dysfunctional losers. In
fact, we are an essential cog in the system of the rule of law. We
need to be functional and coherent."

An eminent criminal silk scoffed: "Cocaine is not the drug for
souped-up, hyped-up people whose guts are churning. If you want to
talk about the culture of the bar, look at the rates of divorce and
infidelity."

Female barristers were more faithful, said one woman with more than
15 years at the bar. "They are juggling work and family. They don't
stray -- they don't have the energy."

Workaholism is another issue, said a fiftysomething male lawyer.
"People get up at 5am every morning during a trial ... the work
literally consumes your life."

Sexism also continues to survive at the bar, many women claim,
despite the Bar Council's efforts to stamp it out. Reports persist of
senior males advising female juniors to avoid the Women Barristers'
Association, for fear of attracting the "whingeing feminist" tag. But
only "old fogey" barristers made derisory comments about women , said
one junior woman.

Huge progress had been made, said Alexandra Richards, QC. The real
issue, she said, was "briefing" practices, where the lion's share of
high-profile supreme and appeal court briefs went to males, a
practice unaffected by the government's "equal opportunity" briefing policy.

Peter Faris' claims, many lawyers said, just rehashed the gossip that
followed the 1999 drugs arrest of solicitor Andrew Fraser.

High-profile legal figures who had attended Fraser's boardroom
parties were said to have been recorded on police surveillance tapes.
Several lawyers were then said to have gone to police with "mea
culpas", but were told that police were only interested in Fraser,
who served five years' jail for cocaine trafficking.

But one thirtysomething barrister said that some lawyers failed to
"pull their horns in" after Fraser's arrest and a small "Toorak-South
Yarra hard partying set" of thirtysomething solicitors and barristers
still used cocaine regularly. Meanwhile, another older barrister, who
uses the drug occasionally, when non-lawyer mates are buying,
maintained that cocaine was not an issue at the bar.

"Coke was fashionable in the late '80s. But even at its height, it
wasn't used here more than anywhere else."