SEK Hulme interview 17 November 2006

Aside from the fact that he, I guess, by example explained to you that it wasn’t about the fair share of work, what were some of the other important things that he taught you while you were his reader?

I suppose two things you can put together, (a) the importance of doing the necessary work and (b), from Keith’s point of view, the importance of not doing the unnecessary work. Sometimes, indeed quite often, people in the kind of work that he was doing, the equity work, would be asked to advise as to the meaning of certain words in a will, etcetera. Now if Keith thought there was a real doubt and the matter was going to have to go to court, he would say, “This is the issue. It’s either this or this. And really if I expressed a final view on it, the trustee would not be safe in acting upon it. It’s necessary for there to be an originating summons and it’s not necessary for me to say any more”, and (he would) bung that back to them. Having done what they needed, now what was the next step and the next step would be (to) brief him to draw the papers.

Now Richard Newton, by contrast, would analyse the five possible meanings and go into each of these in a long opinion, for which they would wait several months and then say at the end, “But you would be unsafe in relying on my opinion, so you’ve got to have an originating summons.” Now Keith got to that point in a couple of days early on. Richard really did no more in that respect than prepare the argument that everyone else was going to put when they got there and so one of the things that people used to ask for if you were appearing in one where Newton had advised, you’d ask the trustee if you could a get a copy of Newton’s opinion because there would be your argument prepared for you. From the point of view of the trustee, all of that wasn’t helpful. What the trustee wanted to know was what to do. What to do was you had to make a decision to go to court. There was the issue and there were alternative views on it. Why waste time giving him any more?

At the start Aickin, of course, appeared as a junior. If his leader got sick, I don’t think he ever in his life suggested that another leader should be brought in. If the solicitor wanted to bring in another leader, that was fine, but as far as Aickin was concerned, he was perfectly happy to continue on his own in any court. So he hadn’t been at the Bar for very long at all before he was appearing on his own in the High Court and, of course, Dixon had the highest regard for his intellect. It was interesting (that) these two contrasting styles of Newton and Aickin should have had rooms 50 feet from each other, both in Eagle Star Chambers.

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