Charles FRANCIS AM RFD QC interview 4/11/2003

Where exactly did you do articles?

I did my articles at a firm which was then Arthur Robinson and Co., and much later it amalgamated with other firms. It’s still in existence. At that time, that firm did nothing but company law, and they acted for many big companies. So while I was there, I didn’t do much other than company law.

That ultimately was not what you chose to specialise in?

I didn’t entirely choose – you tend to gravitate towards the work you get. When I came to the Bar, I was thinking primarily in terms of doing commercial law, but there wasn’t much commercial law about at that stage. Everyone began by going out to the Magistrates Court, and doing simple claims in negligence, and doing petty criminal work. You’d get other work like appearing at coroners’ inquests. But that was all really in the common law sphere.

You felt though that your time in the Magistrates Court was good experience – a rough and tumble experience which is perhaps missing today?

It’s missing from the training of some, but at that time, it was virtually standard practice to start off doing that sort of work. One of its benefits was that you learned to become street-wise – you also learned how to cross-examine, handle witnesses and so on, which was invaluable background as you moved to more important work.

What was your cross-examining style like to begin with?

That’s a hard question to answer. I used to always prepare my cross-examination very thoroughly and I’d think of questions to which it was difficult to give an answer which wasn’t harmful to the party. I tried to think the whole thing out as to where I was going, but sometimes you came to grief.

Did you appear much before irascible judges and magistrates who pulled you up every now and then?

Oh, yes – not so much the magistrates, but there were some very irascible judges. One of the judges was Judge Moore, who was a famous bad man judge, and he was constantly pulling everyone up. He had a few favourites, but by and large, everyone had a rough time before him.

What was bad about him?

He was aggressive. He thought he knew everything, and if you didn’t fall in with what he thought should happen, he’d be ready to criticise.

But later in my career, in 1963, for some years prior to that, I’d refused to appear before him, and my clerk said “This can’t go on – you’ve got to appear before every judge”. I was given a brief to appear for a woman who’d been injured in a railway accident. The brief was at Shepparton, and I went up there determined I wouldn’t get into a fight with him (with Judge Moore).

It was before a jury, and he was rude and impolite to me the whole of the day. At 5.30, he said “We’ll continue tonight, at 7.30". My opponent and I came back into the court at about 25 past 7, and before the judge came in, the jury walked past and the foreman said to me, “How do you ever manage to remain pleasant to a bastard like that?” Well, I realised I was on top and I was pleasant to him for the rest of the case, and we got a very big verdict. It was taken on appeal, and we held onto the amount 2:1.

Conducted for the Bar Oral History project by Juliette Brodsky in the Neil McPhee Room, Owen Dixon Chambers and filmed by Stewart Carter (People Pictures)