The Victorian Bar - Oral History

Four Judges and a Silk

	"Four Judges and a Silk" is an audio interview conducted in May 2007 with four retired Judges of the Victorian Court of Appeal and one Queen's Counsel who have been friends and colleagues since the 1940s. The Hon Clive Tadgell AO, the Hon John. D. Phillips, the Hon W.F. Ormiston AO and the Hon John Batt have practised at the Victorian Bar and served on the Supreme Court bench with distinction since coming to the Bar in the early 1960s. James Merralls AM QC also came to the Bar at that time and has practised at the Bar since then. The Bar oral history project is pleased to include their reminiscences about characters of Bar and bench, reflections on changes in Bar culture and observations about the contrast between their early days and the present.

Four Judges and a Silk audio sections

	Part 1	"You might do me the courtesy of writing legibly."
	Part 2	"What, you have no opinion?"
	Part 3	"if you were a newcomer, he would sort of turn you over as if you were a mouse."
	Part 4	"He kept his briefs in one of those old vegetable stands."
	Part 5	"If you get your opening right and you're for the plaintiff, ordinarily, you should win."
	Part 6	"The mouse was said to be in the bottle when the tram conductor opened it up...."
	Part 7	"We were going to set up a blacklist, a blacklist of solicitors..."
	Part 8	"If you get into the lift, you should always have a pack of cards."
	Part 9	"He saw (Dr) Coppel, whom he professed to detest...".
	Part 10	"It made one think about the decision."
	Part 11	"Brusey always mentioned minor points and then the last one he'd mention was the difficult point."
	Part 12	"He used to spend days and days and days just going into court and listening to Winneke..."
	Part 13	"They go in now with trolleys of books. ..."