Everything we learned in the wake of Lisa Wilkinson’s legal victory over her employer Network Ten

Lisa Wilkinson has won the battle with Network Ten over her million-dollar legal bills, but exactly how much it will be remains to be seen.

Lisa Wilkinson has won the battle over who pays her legal fees. It remains to be seen if she will win the defamation war.

Exactly how much Ten is required to pay will not be determined until the conclusion of the defamation trial.

A judgment call on the defamation trial is expected in March or April.

“It seems to me plain beyond peradventure in all circumstances it was reasonable for Ms Wilkinson to retain separate lawyers,” Justice Lee said.

“And accordingly, the question becomes where do we go from there.”

Earlier, lawyers for Network Ten indicated they would no longer adhere to the position that “it was unreasonable for Ms Wilkinson to retain her own legal team”.

Her lawyer Michael Elliot SC accused Ten of refusing to pay on the eve of the trial and said the result was “an embarrassment” for the broadcaster.

The result he suggested “reflects the vindication of our position”.

Three years ago, on February 15, 2021, Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins’ allegation that she was raped on the couch in the office of Defence Industry Minister Linda Reynolds exploded into the national consciousness.

It has resulted in a police investigation, thousands of women marching on Parliament House, an Australian Human Rights Commission report into Parliamentary Workplaces, additional funding for sexual assault support services and new laws governing the employment of political staffers.

Lisa Wilkinson has won the battle over who pays her legal fees. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Damian Shaw

There was a criminal trial where the accused Bruce Lehrmann pleaded not guilty and a parade of former cabinet ministers gave evidence.

But after that trial collapsed in the wake of an allegation of juror misconduct, the DPP chose not to hold a second trial citing concerns of Ms Higgins’ mental health and her ability to withstand a second trial.

Swiftly afterwards, she was awarded a $2.4 million compensation payout and Mr Lehrmann indicated he would sue for defamation with Ms Higgins taking to social media to declare she would welcome the opportunity to return to the witness box.

Last year, there was an ACT board of inquiry into the conduct of the trial and now a Supreme Court challenge into Walter Sofronoff’s findings amid court claims he was “infected” with bias against the DPP Shane Drumgold by his conversations with newspaper columnist Janet Albrechtsen.

This week, there was a spin off from the defamation trial: a fight over who will pay Wilkinson’s legal fees.

As the Federal Court examined the breakdown in Wilkinson’s relationship with her employer, we learned that her emotional farewell to viewers on The Project where she blamed the “targeted toxicity” of the media omitted an important fact.

Bruce Lehrmann. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Nikki Short

She had been “removed” to use her own terminology by the Ten CEO Beverley McGarvey, with her agent informing her she had suffered too much “brand damage” as a result of the Logies speech fallout.

What was apparent as Justice Michael Lee handed down his judgement on the issue of the TV host’s legal costs was that he remained somewhat mindblown that a lawyer had ever advised her to deliver that speech.

Earlier, Ten’s top legal counsel, Tasha Smithies defended that legal advice suggesting it would be “prejudicial” if Wilkinson “deviated” from her support for Ms Higgins by not giving the Logies speech.

“The words I would use is: Ms Wilkinson became part of the story,’’ she said.

“It was linked with the friendship and support between Higgins and Grace Tame, and this was clear and unequivocal in my mind for the 18 months preceding the Logies speech.

“So to deviate from that position in the speech, in my mind, was more prejudicial because it would be saying that she was wavering in her support of Ms Higgins.”

Brittany Higgins with Lisa Wilkinson. Picture: Supplied

In the wake of the speech Wilkinson was hung out to dry by her employer according to her barrister, with Ten refusing until the bitter end to admit she was acting on legal advice as she was attacked in the media.

But the calamity of that TV week “sh*tshow”, as her husband Peter FitzSimons later described it, provided one of her strongest arguments for why she lost faith in the legal advice of Ten.

“It seems to me plain beyond peradventure in all circumstances it was reasonable for Ms Wilkinson to retain separate lawyers,” Justice Lee concluded.

If Ten loses this case it could face a legal bill in the millions – Ms Wilkinson’s costs of over $1 million, Ten’s own costs are also upwards of $1 million and potentially Mr Lehrmann’s which is expected to be similar and a potential damages payout.

But lawyers acting for Ten and Wilkinson have submitted an alternate outcome to the judge that given the various “lies” they argued Mr Lehrmann told the court that he should get nothing even if he the judge cannot find on the balance of probability that Ms Higgins was raped.

If Ten wins it remains possible it will still face huge legal costs because it remains unclear if the plaintiff Mr Lehrmann, who is a law student, has any assets.

But Ten’s position at the start of the trial – that it should pay nothing, or not a “brass razoo” as her barrister put it – has been torpedoed by Justice Lee.

Justice Lee also suggested that the risks of Wilkinson’s Logies speech was something that should have been “obvious to a cadet journalist”.

But he accepted she received legal advice to the contrary.

“My client was not at any time a court reporter or a news reporter,” said Wilkinson’s barrister, Sue Chrysanthou.

Originally published as Everything we learned in the wake of Lisa Wilkinson’s legal victory over her employer Network Ten