Jeff Sher interview 18 November 2009

Jeff Sher, thank you very much for agreeing to be interviewed for this project. You are and were a leading defamation specialist at the Bar, but that only really touches on a tiny part of your whole career as a barrister. Let's just start with your earliest years. You were born in 1936, tell us a little bit about your earliest years and what schools you went to.

Well, I started off, because my mother was living at St Kilda, at St Kilda Park State School where Zelman Cowen also went to school but not at the same time. Though my parents were separated, my father realised, I think, that a good education was important so he was prepared to pay for me to go to a good school and he paid for me to go to Haileybury, which at that stage was a school of about, when I started in 1944, a little bit more than 200 students. I think it's now got over 3000. So I spent my boyhood years as a boarder at Haileybury until my last two years at school when I was a day boy. I matriculated, as you did then, at the age of 16 and went to Melbourne University to do law.

What sort of student were you, do you think?

Well, not being immodest, I was a pretty good student. I did very well in my final year, and that's how I got into university. I had to achieve a certain level of success in my exams and managed to do that, so I started law at the age of 16.

So you knew you were going to be a lawyer even at an early age?

I had this romantic notion, I think probably fostered by shows like Perry Mason, but it's a lot different.

Were there other figures while you were growing up who perhaps also influenced you to do law or were there lawyers in your family?

No lawyers in the family. Nothing really, it's just that I had this romantic notion about being an advocate and set out to become one but I was too young really to go straight to the Bar so I did articles with the Commonwealth Crown Solicitors in Melbourne and in another year, got admitted at the age of 21 and then went to work for a former politician John Don who'd set up practice after he'd left parliament, in Elsternwick. I worked for John for a couple of years, doing a lot of magistrates' court work so I got practice at clients' expense and then I went to the Bar.

The Magistrates' Court in those days was a bit of a rough and tumble atmosphere, and I imagine a very good apprenticeship for a young lawyer.

Well, it was worse than that in a sense because a lot of the cases were heard by JPs (justices of the peace) who had absolutely no legal training at all. So you were sort of like appearing before a jury even before you appeared before a jury. But some of the justice handed out was pretty rough yes.

Do you think it was a good thing they did away with the JP system?

Absolutely essential in my view. I think there was some terrible justice administered at the hands of untrained JPs. I could give some examples, but I don't think I will.

Did you see anything specifically corrupt or in any way untoward, or did you feel just a general disgust at the way things were meted out? I'm talking about your impressions at that time.

Well, magistrates weren't a heck of a lot better. In fact, in many cases, there were some good ones but there were a lot of bad ones and that's probably because they didn't have sufficient legal training or the objectivity that you now get from trained lawyers who are made magistrates. The improvement in the standards in the lower courts (since) has been dramatic.

Was John Don an important early figure for you while you were starting out in law?

Oh sure. A very nice man for a start, very knowledgeable, and even though I was young and didn't know a great deal, he gave me a lot of important work to do and I learned on the job.

Did you have any contemporaries from that time who you still know well today, are well acquainted with today, who went with you to the Bar perhaps?

One guy springs to mind: Graham Emmanuel (who) has passed away, about 10-15 years ago. I think a number of my contemporaries have passed on. Thinking in terms of those who went to the Bar, I was at school with John Barnard who was a few years older than me. John went to the Bar and took silk and we ended up practising in much the same area which was personal injuries but I haven't seen John for years, he retired some years ago.

Your mother and father, too, I imagine were very pleased that you went into law?

I think so. It's funny, really. I had a pretty good scholastic career, (a) reasonably good academic career at university and quite a lot of success at the Bar, but never really heard much from my father at all and I didn't really get on terribly well with my mother, so I sort of did it on my own.

A lone wolf.

Well, I've been described in a number of ways and that's probably one of them.

Conducted for the Victorian Bar oral history project by Juliette Brodsky, and filmed by Stewart Carter on 18 November 2009