SEK Hulme interview 17 November 2006

Zelman Cowen became something of a mentor to you.

Yes. Zelman was very very helpful and when I was applying for the Rhodes scholarship, he was - there was some limit on what he could do because he was one of the selectors, but he certainly did as much as he was able to do, perhaps a bit more. But he was very very helpful and after I won it, he was helpful in helping to select Oxford colleges and things of that sort.

He actually suggested that it would be beneficial for you to study overseas, didn’t he?

That's right. He asked me what I was going to do the following year and this was when I was doing articles. I was editing what had been called Res Judicatae and we were just changing the name to the Melbourne University Law Review and I went out to see Zelman about something. It was in that context. We were walking down the street to do some shopping that his wife wanted done and he asked me what I was doing the next year and I said that I’d be going to the Bar and he said, “You should go abroad and study.” I said, “Well, we haven’t got any money. I can’t go abroad and study”. “Nonsense”, said Zelman, “There are scholarships. What about the Rhodes?” And that was how I came to apply for that year. I said, “Well, look I was in for that last year and I didn’t get it and I think (that) you try once, you don’t try again.” And Zelman said, “Nonsense. Lots of good people didn’t get it the first time they applied. I didn’t get it the first time I applied.” He regarded that as proof positive. So I was in again and I think Jim Gobbo had got it the previous year and I was in it again and I got it that time and Jim and I both went Magdalen on Zelman’s recommendation. My tutor at Magdalen said that Magdalen would continue to accept anyone who was recommended to the college by the Melbourne University Law School. That of course was not permanent. That would’ve been dependent on no doubt the person in charge there, being Zelman, who knew the system and didn’t recommend people unless he thought that they were what Magdalen was looking for.

Well, it certainly says something for the fact that at Oxford University they must have regarded Melbourne University Law School very highly.

I think they did, yes.

For them to say that…

Yes, and of course Sir George Paton, who was Zelman’s predecessor as dean of the Law School, which he gave up to become Vice Chancellor, had been at Oxford himself in the past. So there had historically been quite a strong connection between the Melbourne Law School and Oxford.

This was in 1953. You’d been admitted to the Bar, but then you went to Oxford.

That's right. I’d been admitted to the Bar on the advice of Maurice Ashkanasy. He was then Chairman of the Bar Council. I forget why I was talking to Ash because at the time I’d been admitted as a solicitor and I was simply going abroad as a solicitor. For some reason, I was talking to Ashkanasy and he said, “When are you going to sign the Bar Roll”, and I said, “Well, when I come back from Oxford”, and Ash said, “No, you should sign before you go”. At that time there was a tremendous shortage of chambers for barristers. A lot of young barristers simply didn’t have chambers. The waiting time when you shared, etc, was something like three years. So Ash said, “If you sign now, when you come back you’ll be three years senior.” So I did in fact sign and go abroad as a barrister and there was a bit of muttering when I came back because I more or less got off the ship one day and, within limits, I was in a room straight away and some people, who had been waiting for two and a half years, weren’t terribly happy about that.

Conducted for the Bar Oral History project by Juliette Brodsky in Owen Dixon Chambers West and filmed by Rocco Fasano