Call For Reviewers

I want to use this opportunity to get more of my colleagues involved in the process and seek to expand our services (I almost said “empire”) further.

I will remind you of the deal. The publishers send me copies of their latest texts (often pre-publication). You come and collect a book from my room. Within a reasonable period (say, a month), you produce three or four hundred words (more, if you choose) which will then be published in Hearsay.

You see your name in print. I send the review off to the publisher who is happy and sends more books. And, best of all, you keep the text for your book shelves. There is also the allure of CPD Points for each review that is published.

Can I say to the more recent recruits to our profession: there is absolutely nothing immoral about doing some of your research from documents published in hard copy and not on line. (There are actually some singular advantages which I will elaborate upon for you, one day.)

As well as working to add to your library, I would like to invite you, my colleagues, to review books from a wider net. You are just back from your summer reading. There is a beautiful eclecticness about the strange collection of people that comprise the Bar in Queensland and I would like us to document that by publishing reviews of books that you have just happened to read: studies of the Napoleon’s doomed march into Russia in 1812; diaries of scientific artists who traveled with Cook or Flinders; the latest Margaret Attwood; Danish detective novels and so on. So get to it. Email me a review of the latest book that “knocked your socks off”. If you be very good, I may be able to get our publishers to expand their offerings so that you can get some of your leisure reading free as well.

And a short list of the orphans who were seeking reviewers at time of putting two fingers to the keyboard: Taylor, The Constitution of Victoria; Hancock, The Liberals: the NSW Division 1945-2000; White, Australasian Marine Pollution Laws; Ballard and Sutherland, Annotated Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988; Roebuck and Martinov-Bennie, Case Studies in Auditing and Assurance; and the Queensland Government, Department of Justice and Attorney-General, Discussion Paper: Reform of Civil and Administrative Justice. I am expecting very shortly the discussion paper from the David Solomon chaired Independent Review of FOI in Queensland.

I am particularly keen to get reviewers for the two discussion papers because of the importance of the respective subjects to our work as barristers.

So, that’s enough from me. The challenge is yours. I look forward to hearing from you.

Stephen Keim SC

Book Review Editor

Hearsay