Bar Council spruiks top silk, as it ponders reprimanding her
The NSW Bar Association is promoting a free seminar for junior barristers on cross-examination to be given by Sue Chrysanthou, SC, even as it attempts to have the top silk reprimanded for “unsatisfactory professional conduct”.
The NSW Legal Services Commission is weighing up a recommendation from the Bar Council to reprimand Ms Chrysanthou, after it made a finding on June 8 that the top barrister had engaged in “unsatisfactory professional conduct” in deciding to represent former federal attorney-general Christian Porter in a defamation case.
The Federal Court last July ordered Ms Chrysanthou to stop acting for Mr Porter in the proceedings against the ABC over a historical rape allegation, after fielding a complaint from Adelaide Writers Festival boss Jo Dyer who argued that the barrister had met and given her advice on a separate matter.
Conflict over conflict of interest: Christian Porter, Sue Chrysanthou, SC, Jo Dyer. Alex Ellinghausen, Kate Geraghty, Wolter Peeters
Ms Dyer also made the complaint to the Bar Council – which leads the peak body representing barristers in NSW – where she alleged that Ms Chrysanthou had breached rules by agreeing to act for Mr Porter when she had been in possession of confidential information about Ms Dyer.
Mr Porter’s case was eventually discontinued but Ms Dyer, who was a friend of the woman at the centre of the rape allegation against Mr Porter, which he denied, argued that she could have been called on as a witness in the case and that Ms Chrysanthou had information about her that could be used against her interests.
On June 8, the Bar Council upheld this segment of the complaint and found that Ms Chrysanthou had “engaged in unsatisfactory professional conduct in respect of a
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