New breed of feminist lawyer - does ideology trump impartial justice?

What about the NSW Director of Public Prosecutions, Sally Dowling SC, who had a melt-down when District Court judge Robert Newlinds claimed her office was taking a "lazy and perhaps politically ­expedient" approach to rape cases by failing to interrogate complainants' allegations and sometimes putting hopeless cases before the court. (His comments occurred in relation to a case where a man had spent eight months on remand in jail – and the jury took one hour to throw the case out. Then it turned out the woman had made similar allegations about six other men.)

Sally Dowling's response was an emotional outburst against Newlinds, announcing she was making a complaint about his comments to the Judicial Commission and claiming he was undermining public confidence in the administration of justice.

Note that Newlinds' comments were echoed last year by three other District Court judges expressing concerns about unmeritorious cases being pushed through into court.

Female lawyers have been out in force publicly celebrating the demolition job Labor inflicted on our Family Law Act. Canberra family lawyer Debra Parker was quoted in a local online paper praising the "overdue" and "transformative" overhaul to family law. She proudly proclaims that the move takes the law back to 1976 – when the "best interests of the child principle" was central. Oh yes, those were the glory days of uniform maternal custody, before parliament was seduced into thinking dads actually matter.

There's no mention of fathers in Parker's celebratory commentary. The only time they rate a mention is through posing a risk of exposing children to family violence, as she justifies the new laws which toss out the assumption of shared parental responsibility, let alone equal shared time.

It is hardly surprising that family law has been pushed back half a century. Feminist lawyers are muscling into all the key legal bodies advising governments on changes to family law and lining up to give evidence before inquiries and commissions. They represent a mighty powerful lobby, and, given that these changes are bound to increase parental conflict and push more divorcing couples back to court, they will also swell the coffers of family law firms across the country. It's no wonder we are seeing women's interests taking priority in our family law system.

Perhaps ironically, given the historical underpinnings of feminism, what most of these women have in common is a disdain for the principle of equality before the law. Their goals appear to be primarily about promoting and protecting women's rights at the expense of men's rights. Their priorities are to do everything they can to protect and cosset women, believing their every story. Too often, the effect of their actions is to undermine long-standing and legitimate legal safeguards. Safeguards that are designed to ensure that innocent men are not convicted. Perhaps their beliefs have blinded them to the fact that innocent men do exist in the real world – they are not the ideological unicorns many feminists would have us believe.

Yes, feminist lawyers are increasingly powerful, and they are on the move.