Juliette Brodsky

Well, good morning gentlemen, thank you very much for joining me today. The Honourable Bill Ormiston, Clive Tadgell, John Batt, John Phillips – or JD Phillips as we’ll refer to him - and James Merralls QC, thank you all very much for your time. A brief introduction: you’ve all been friends and colleagues in Victoria for many years; four of you served as judges on Victoria’s Supreme Court and are now retired. James Merralls is still practising at Owen Dixon Chambers. But for the five of you, this is a unique opportunity for you to reflect on your years at the Victorian Bar and as well the Bench. Before we move to the topic of the Bar, I’d just like to briefly touch on how you all met. I know that three of you came from Melbourne Grammar, one from Scotch College and one from Wesley. John Batt, if I might begin with you - you were, I understand, dux of Melbourne Grammar, but I read that the exhibition in Latin eluded you. John Phillips, here, John Phillips whom you were yet to meet, was Exhibitioner in Latin in 1953, is that right?

John Batt

That’s correct. I was dux of the school and only in my first year of matriculation. I met Bill Ormiston, I think, in 1943 when he came to live in a street in which I was living and still live.

Bill Ormiston

I would say 1941, but I might be wrong there.

John Batt

Anyhow, we met about then which was a long time ago and then we met Jim Merralls when he came to the senior school at Melbourne Grammar in 1949.

James Merralls

’49, from Sydney, yes.

Juliette Brodsky

Were you friends? Were you all friends at that point?

John Batt

Yes, yes.

Juliette Brodsky

You made friends quite quickly?

John Batt:

And Clive Tadgell, I think I met when he came into Trinity College.

Clive Tadgell:

Probably before that, wasn’t it? It was ’56.

John Batt

Yes, we would have been at the same lectures in the first year. I dropped behind the others because I was doing a double course – ’54 was our first year at the university.

Juliette Brodsky

And the double course, you were doing classics …

John Batt

I did an honours arts course as well as the law course, which took six years.

Juliette Brodsky

And, JD Phillips, when did you then meet everybody?

JD Phillips

First year university, ’54.

Juliette Brodsky

What were your first impressions?

JD Phillips

Oh, I can’t remember –

Clive Tadgell

Of whom or what?

Juliette Brodsky

Of all of you.

JD Phillips

No, I can’t remember.

Juliette Brodsky

Do any of you have any other abiding …

JD Phillips

We had some connection through the Law Students’ Society at some stage.

Clive Tadgell

Yes, I don’t think our impressions of each other were very vivid in the first year, which was 1954.

James Merralls

I debated with you in 1954, not at the university.

Clive Tadgell

I do remember that.

James Merralls

We went to Pentridge.

Clive Tadgell

That’s right, we debated against John Bryan Kerr –

James Merralls

We did indeed.

Clive Tadgell

Who’d recently been incarcerated for murder, yes, and we also debated elsewhere.

Juliette Brodsky

Can you remember the topics that you debated at Pentridge?

Clive Tadgell

No, very forgettable, I think.

James Merralls

I can remember the flamboyant style of John Bryan Kerr.

Clive Tadgell

Yes, he spent most of his time polishing his boots, I think, because you could see your face in them.

JD Phillips

I remember that first year I was a non-resident in Ormond College and I was being tutored by Daryl Dawson at that point.

Juliette Brodsky

What was it like studying with Daryl Dawson?

JD Phillips

It was only an hour a week… It was good fun, he was a final year student.

John Batt

He marked one of my assignments and gave it a good mark, but added, “You might do me the courtesy of writing legibly”. (Laughter)

Juliette Brodsky

Has your writing style improved?

John Batt

No, not at all, but I’m still friends with him.

Juliette Brodsky

Out of interest, who else do you recall as teaching you at that time? Sir Zelman Cowen, did any of you …?

Clive Tadgell

Certainly.

Bill Ormiston

Not in our first year.

Clive Tadgell

Not in our first year and not until our third year, I think.

Bill Ormiston

We had Arthur Turner for Introduction to Legal Method and Harold Ford for Legal History and those were the only two law subjects one did in the first year. One did two arts subjects, one of which had to be British history, although at that stage it wasn’t British History (Law) which was introduced, I think perhaps two or three years later.

James Merralls

No, that’s not right. (Laughter) British History (Law) was a subject, we didn’t do it, we were allowed to do British History (Arts) and you and I did British History (Arts) honours. But there was a subject of British History (Law).

Bill Ormiston

It was a pass subject.

James Merralls

George Yule and Jim Main, yes.

Clive Tadgell

That’s right, yes, they were very conscientious lecturers.

James Merralls

They were very good.

John Batt

And I already fell behind, I did Legal History with Les Downer, which was a little different.

Juliette Brodsky

Why was that a little different?

JD Phillips

He’s not in the same class perhaps as Harold Ford. Harold Ford was brilliant.

James Merralls

He (Downer) was a linguistic scholar rather than a …

John Batt

Yes he was, medieval languages really and secretary for a long time of the Australian branch of the Selden Society.

JD Phillips

And interestingly now to the present day, Ormiston and I did Latin as our second subject.

Juliette Brodsky

Do you think it’s a shame that Latin’s still not being taught?

JD Phillips

Yes, absolutely.

Clive Tadgell

It was only in the year or two before we began that it ceased to be a prerequisite, I think, for law, wasn’t it?

Bill Ormiston

There were no prerequisites when we started law.

John Batt

Judge Woinarski told me that he was on the Law Faculty and voted against the removal of Latin as a compulsory subject, but failed. I think it was about 1949 or thereabouts.

JD Phillips

It was necessary so far as we were concerned because it inculcated principles of grammar, which is very useful, if words are your business.

Bill Ormiston

Every language is useful for understanding English, even dead languages like Latin and Greek, that you studied.

JD Phillips

You have to parse sentences in statutes, you can’t talk about them without parsing them.

Clive Tadgell

Now mention was made of Arthur Turner en passant. He hasn’t come down as one of the greats of that time, but I think he was extremely good at getting us into legal thinking by Introduction to Legal Method.

Juliette Brodsky

In what ways, Clive?

Clive Tadgell

Well, he was uncomplicated, he was reasonably humorous.

James Merralls

He was a natural teacher.

Bill Ormiston

He was a natural teacher, he taught us Property too.

Clive Tadgell

He wasn’t an intellectual in the sense that Harold Ford was, and he won’t mind my saying that, but he was excellent, I think, for getting us into the mode.

James Merralls

He also taught us Property in second year.

Bill Ormiston

That’s what I said.

JD Phillips

It was interesting that three of us who shared the same lecturers all the way through our law course ended up on the Court of Appeal; that was very odd.

Juliette Brodsky

Well, odd, but necessarily brought about by some commonality of style, would you think?

JD Phillips

No, training.

James Merralls

We were lucky, I think - we had very good teachers all the way through. We had later Professor Donovan who was the professor of commercial law. We had Mr Brett, as he then was, who later became Professor Brett.

John Batt

Dr Brett.

James Merralls

Dr Brett, was he? Sir Zelman Cowen who was then Professor Cowen and Sir David Derham, then Professor Derham, professor of public law, was he?

John Batt

No, Zelman was public law.

James Merralls

And he (Derham) was professor of jurisprudence.

JD Phillips

Yes, yes. And the ebullient Norval Morris for crime and tort.

Bill Ormiston

Norval Morris was as good a lecturer as we had in any subject.

JD Phillips

He bounced around and made it all move, it was wonderful.

Bill Ormiston

And he walked up and down the stage and one was terrified because he walked up and down the stage in those old theatres and everyone thought he was about to topple over the end, but suddenly he’d do a u-turn and go back and do the same thing at the other end – backwards and forwards – but he taught brilliantly. Crime and tort.

Clive Tadgell

Firing questions. I remember one Monday morning, he was teaching torts or something and he’d fired a question at David Kendall who was sitting next to me. David Kendall had on the previous Saturday had a bad accident by way of collision with another footballer and his jaw was all wired up. I said, “Sir, he can’t speak”. He said “Very well, you speak” and I said, “Oh, I can’t speak either”. (Laughter) So I avoided the question rather ignominiously.