page_title: Barrister
section_title: Australia
hierarchical_section_title: Barrister / Barristers around the world / Australia
caption_attribution_description: Digital reproduction of a head and shoulders portrait of Margaret Battye in formal legal dress. Note at source: "Printed under photograph "Miss Margaret Battye. First legal adviser to W.S. Guilds. Foundation member Business and Professional Women"
context_page_description: A barrister is a type of lawyer in common law jurisdictions. Barristers mostly specialise in courtroom advocacy and litigation. Their tasks include taking cases in superior courts and tribunals, drafting legal pleadings, researching the philosophy, hypothesis and history of law, and giving expert legal opinions.
  Barristers are distinguished from solicitors, who have more direct access to clients, and may do transactional-type legal work. It is mainly barristers who are appointed as judges, and they are rarely hired by clients directly. In some legal systems, including those of Scotland, South Africa, Scandinavia, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, and the British Crown dependencies of Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man, the word barrister is also regarded as an honorific title.
  In a few jurisdictions, barristers are usually forbidden from "conducting" litigation, and can only act on the instructions of a solicitor, who performs tasks such as corresponding with parties and the court, and drafting court documents. In England and Wales, barristers may seek authorisation from the Bar Standards Board to conduct litigation.
context_section_description: In the Australian states of New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland, there is a split profession. Nevertheless, subject to conditions, barristers can accept direct access work from clients. Each state Bar Association regulates the profession and essentially has the functions of the English Inns of Court. In the states of South Australia and Western Australia, as well as the Australian Capital Territory, the professions of barrister and solicitor are fused, but an independent bar nonetheless exists, regulated by the Legal Practice Board of the state or territory. In Tasmania and the Northern Territory, the profession is fused, although a very small number of practitioners operate as an independent bar.
  Generally, counsel dress in the traditional English manner (wig, gown, bar jacket and jabot) before superior courts, although this is not usually done for interlocutory applications. Wigs and robes are still worn in the Supreme Court and the District Court in civil matters and are dependent on the judicial officer's attire. Robes and wigs are worn in all criminal cases. In Western Australia, wigs are no longer worn in any court.
  Each year, the Bar Association appoints certain barristers of seniority and eminence to the rank of "Senior Counsel" (in most States and Territories) or "Queen's Counsel" (in the Northern Territory, Queensland, and Victoria). Such barristers carry the title "SC" or "QC" after their name. The appointments are made after a process of consultation with members of the profession and the judiciary. Senior Counsel appear in particularly complex or difficult cases. They make up about 14 per cent of the bar in New South Wales.
caption: Margaret Battye, 1930s Australian court dress
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