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Family law disputes often involve haggling over tens or hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of property, sometimes even more. With that much money at stake, things can get nasty. But without doubt the most bitter family law battles of all invariably are not the ones that concern dollars and cents, but the ones that revolve around custody and access to the children of the marriage. In the context of marriage breakdown the most terrifying prospect for any parent is the threat of international child abduction by a spouse and unfortunately, in recent decades, Australia has witnessed an alarming rise in the incidence of such abductions, spawned by the growing ease and affordability of international travel, the increasing proliferation of bi-cultural marriage, and the rapid escalation of the divorce rate.
The old show business adage warns you should never work with animals or children. They’re unruly, unpredictable, and way too cute, and in the end they’re always going to steal the show. It’s a pearl of wisdom usually attributed to the curmudgeonly actor-comedian W C Fields, of whom writer Leo Rosten once quipped “Any man who hates dogs and small children can’t be all bad.”
Next Monday, when Nyst Legal officially re-opens its doors for 2016, we will have the pleasure of welcoming aboard an exciting new addition to our professional ranks. Gisele Reid is a promising young lawyer who will join us this year to practise in the fields of Family Law, Civil Litigation and Migration Law. Born and bred in Sao Paulo Brazil, she speaks fluent Portuguese and Spanish, and has extensive links to the expatriate Brazilian community on the Gold Coast. After coming here as a tourist in 2007, Gisele was so impressed with the Queensland lifestyle she decided to stay put, eventually enrolling in the Bachelor of Laws degree course at Bond University. Following her graduation from Bond in 2012, she practised extensively in Family Law with esteemed Family Law specialist, the late Mr Charles Cooper, and in 2016 she will join Nyst Legal to work primarily in our Family Law division. Meanwhile, she will also continue to service the business and other migration law needs of her clientele. We proudly welcome Gisele to the Nyst Legal line-up.
Last week the press had a field day taking pot-shots at Southport magistrate Bernadette Callaghan for ordering police to remove handcuffs from a defendant appearing in court. When the man subsequently made a run for it, according to newspaper reports police went into a spin, with one ‘police source’ accusing the magistrate of treating herself as being “above the law” because she refused to have the defendant manacled in her courtroom, and another high-ranking officer threatening to boycott the courts over the matter.
The armed militants of Daesh, pillaging and plundering their way across the Middle East, proclaim themselves heroes of Islam. But heroes come in all shapes and sizes.
If you're hooked, as I am, on the phenomenally popular podcast, Serial, crank up those earphones and get ready for a new round of infuriating twists and turns.
Criminal defence lawyers often deal with desperate people - desperate to clear their name, desperate to establish their innocence, sometimes just desperate to avoid their guilt. And desperate people take desperate measures.
This week saw the passing of my very dear friend and mentor Kelly Macgroarty, one of Queensland’s greatest criminal law defence barristers of any era. Born Neil Joseph Macgroarty 81 years ago, he inherited the tag "Kelly" from his father Neil Francis Macgroarty, himself a distinguished Brisbane barrister who served as Queensland Attorney General in the Moore government of the 20's and 30's.
Little fish are sweet. High profile defamation actions and messy murder trials may make for big headlines, but from a lawyer's point of view the smaller, seemingly less significant cases are just as challenging and (provided you finish first, and not just a commendable second) every bit as satisfying.
Experienced lawyers will tell you, you can’t really call yourself a litigator until you’ve won the unwinnable case, and lost the un-loseable. I’ve had more than my share of hopeless cases, with varying results, but here’s one even I wouldn’t like to take on.
Last week ‘New York’s Finest’ were reaching for their Smartphones, posting happy snaps of panhandlers begging on Broadway and vagrants urinating in the streets. What the…?!
Last month the Nyst Legal commercial litigation team spent nearly two weeks in the Federal Court in Melbourne, flanked by a phalanx of QC's, arguing the toss about exactly how far businesses can and can't go in talking up their product to the customers of their commercial competitors.

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