In nearly 40 years as a defamation lawyer, Barrie Goldsmith, special counsel of Australian Defamation Lawyers, now part of Rostron Carlyle Rojas Lawyers, has represented doctors both as plaintiffs and defendants.

In 2010, he secured an injunction preventing a disgruntled patient from defaming her cosmetic surgeon on a website she had created.

At the time, it was still unclear how the courts would respond to injunction applications in cases of internet-based defamation.

In the intervening years, he has been busy, particularly amid the rise of the so-called ‘keyboard warrior’.