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Lehrmann’s new barrister hiding from trolls, court told
The senior counsel representing Bruce Lehrmann at his appeal hearing has asked to remain anonymous over a fear of “trolls”.
Naomi Neilson
Appearing for a case management hearing on Wednesday (6 November) morning, Zali Burrows, solicitor for Lehrmann, said she has not formally briefed or publicly named the senior counsel because he “doesn’t wish to be trolled or harassed”.
Justice Michael Lee returned from a lunchbreak and addressed the court on those posts, telling the 15,000-plus viewers of the YouTube livestream that court staff were monitoring comments.
“I want to just make it perfectly clear to those observing that abuse of any legal practitioners involved in the case will not be tolerated, and if the situation becomes one which I consider the benefits of the live streaming outweighed … then I will cease the live stream,” he said.
Burrows told the court she was holding off on naming Lehrmann’s new counsel until a date could be set for the appeal hearing.
The appeal will challenge Justice Lee’s decision that Lehrmann was found, on a civil standard of proof, to have raped Brittany Higgins in Parliament House after a night of drinking in Canberra.
It follows last month’s failed application by Network Ten to secure $200,000 from Lehrmann before the appeal could progress.
By the end of Wednesday’s hearing, Justice Wendy Abraham had set down 19 to 22 August 2025 for Lehrmann’s appeal, despite objections from counsel for television presenter Lisa Wilkinson.
“That’s a significant delay in circumstances where the appeal was filed five months ago … just to accommodate some unnamed counsel,” Sue Chrysanthou SC told Justice Abraham.
“Accommodating a delay of so many months seems to me to be excessive. Usually, we would be happy to accommodate availability of counsel, but having been told yesterday, [and] not even the name of that person … we wish to raise the matter and request the March dates.”
Justice Abraham clarified that while the appeal was filed five months ago, the preparation for the security of cost matter “took some time”. As for the hearing dates, she said it was the only time that would suit, given that Network Ten’s counsel was not available in June.
“If this person is truly in this matter and there is no other person … then we, of course, understand that, but we’ve been given no information to that effect,” Chrysanthou said.
Burrows said given the unnamed counsel would not be available to start working on submissions until December, it would be an “impossibility” for Lehrmann’s legal team to be ready by March.
Burrows also asked for 25 pages to make her principal submissions, which Chrysanthou said was an “unusually long set of submissions”. She also asked for 20 pages for reply, which would typically be just five.
Naomi Neilson
Naomi Neilson is a senior journalist with a focus on court reporting for Lawyers Weekly.
You can email Naomi at:
