Obviously enamoured of lawyers as much as Shakespeare , a longtime Darwin resident we know expressed surprise and issued a warning after viewing the throng of wigs and gowns at the farewell for Mr Justice David Angel in the NT Supreme Court. In attendance were former judges, members of the Bar Association, the NT Law Society et al. Stirring his café latte , our observer said he was not aware that the legal profession had grown to such huge numbers in the Territory.
Possessed of surprising facts and statistics, he pointed out that in 1933 the camel population of the Territory was officially put at 344 and is now a million. There was a time when the NT only sported one judge, less than a handful of lawyers and a clerk of courts, affectionately known as "Fatty", who filled about 30 positions , including sheriff , returning officer , registrar of births , deaths and marriages. He could also be called out in cases of riot and insurrection. Now, going on the TV coverage of the departing Angel , the Territory had obviously undergone an explosion in the legal profession. If it continued its exponential growth there could be more interlocutors than humping dromedaries in the NT, he predicted , and Darwin would need a Supreme Court as big as Sir Garfield Barwick’s Canberra mausoleum, sans the waterway because cane toads would thrive in it and breed faster than marauding Centralian camels.
Possessed of surprising facts and statistics, he pointed out that in 1933 the camel population of the Territory was officially put at 344 and is now a million. There was a time when the NT only sported one judge, less than a handful of lawyers and a clerk of courts, affectionately known as "Fatty", who filled about 30 positions , including sheriff , returning officer , registrar of births , deaths and marriages. He could also be called out in cases of riot and insurrection. Now, going on the TV coverage of the departing Angel , the Territory had obviously undergone an explosion in the legal profession. If it continued its exponential growth there could be more interlocutors than humping dromedaries in the NT, he predicted , and Darwin would need a Supreme Court as big as Sir Garfield Barwick’s Canberra mausoleum, sans the waterway because cane toads would thrive in it and breed faster than marauding Centralian camels.
