Speeches
Address Delivered by the Hon. Justice Michael Moore at the Conferring of Awards Ceremony
Justice Michael Moore
20 December 2007
Can I start by mentioning two matters. The first is that I would like to show my respect and acknowledge the traditional custodians
of the land, of elders past and present, on which this meeting takes place. The second is to extend my warmest personal congratulations
to each of you who has graduated. It is an enormous achievement of which you should be extremely proud.
The last graduation ceremony I attended was in the great hall at Sydney University. That was earlier this year. For those of you who
do not know the great hall, it is a large hall longer than it is wide tightly packed with lines of chairs on either side of an aisle
leading from the main entrance at one end to the stage or podium at the other. The only other entrance is a door from an anteroom
midway up in the left-hand side of the hall facing the podium. On this day the anteroom was being used by the graduating students
to assemble and robe. The door on the left was their entry point to the hall.
I was attending the ceremony because my older son, 22 years of age, was receiving a degree in bachelor of design in architecture.
As is traditional, parents, friends and graduating students gathered before the official party processed up the aisle.
The graduands had allocated seating so they could leave their seat, obtain a degree and return in an orderly way. As the official
party entered, we all rose. All but one of the graduands was at their allocated seat. There was one vacant seat in the sea of robed
graduands. It was my son's seat. He has mostly been challenged, throughout his life, about getting to places on time and this was
no exception. His vacant seat was to the extreme right of the hall.
The official party passed the line of chairs containing my son’s seat. The students were still standing. Suddenly a figure emerged
from the door of the anteroom on the left and ran crouching along the seats of the chairs of the standing students on the left of
the hall, across the aisle along the seats on the right-hand side to claim the vacant position on the far side of the hall. It was
my son. The judge and lawyer in me was mortified. He was late, he broke all the rules about how to conduct himself at such a ceremony
and failed to respect the dignity of the occasion. I will return to my son’s conduct later.
I graduated from this wonderful university midway through the second half of last century. A year or so later I was admitted to practise
as a solicitor and shortly after, as a barrister.
The admission ceremonies were presided over by the then chief justice, Sir Laurence Street. He had a fairly standard speech he gave
on those occasions. He would tell the young lawyers being admitted that their future lay either in the practice of the noble profession
of the law or working in one of the great departments of state. It is possible that I may have travelled through a golden age of
the legal profession. Like many baby boomers, I have had the privilege of working in a profession which provided great rewards, and
I am not speaking necessarily of financial rewards, to those who practised the law.
There are signs that this appears to be changing quite dramatically. Only last week I read a newspaper report of facebook sites created
by young lawyers apparently disenchanted with the practice of law. The respected firm of Allens Arthur Robinson is grappling with
an AAR facebook group which contains information on where to get another job. Another respected firm with a similar challenge is
Freehills. The Freehill's facebook group described themselves "as trained, burnt out and (mostly) departed". Commercial pressures
seem to be making it less attractive, at least for some, to engage in what Sir Laurence Street described as the noble profession
of the law. For my part, I have some sympathy with that view. The law society journal recently reported a study undertaken by researchers
at the University of Newcastle of law graduates from that university. Seventy per cent of the respondents did not intend to remain
in legal practice until retirement and half would not choose a career in law if they had their time again. Of the 88 graduates interviewed,
75% were aged between 27 and 34 and most were employed in private practice.
Young lawyers entering the profession, at least working for first and second tier firms, may end up working very long hours without
any clear picture of the satisfaction practising law can bring. One extraordinary thing that is occurring within the legal profession
is the open discussion of depression amongst lawyers. Again, a recent law society journal reported on this topic, and I quote the
heading of the article "firms join forces to fight depression". The article tells us that managing partners from four of the nation's
biggest law firms have discussed putting aside their rivalries and working together to tackle high levels of depression within the
legal profession.
Indeed there is now an annual lecture, the Tristan Jepson memorial lecture, devoted, I understand, to the subject of depression. Tristan
was a young man, apparently full of life and talented in many respects, who when working as a young lawyer, took his own life. This
annual lecture has become a vehicle in which, amongst other things, senior members of the legal profession have revealed their battles
with depression. They do so in the hope of helping others.
A survey was conducted in November 2006 by a management consultant of 7551 professionals. The prominent national organisation addressing
depression, Beyond Blue, was asked to provide questions designed to assess mental health issues. The survey revealed that the sample
of professionals had higher than average depression scores when compared to the general population and, in this group, the depression
scores decreased with age. That is, younger age groups showed progressively higher depression scores. The survey also revealed that
respondents from legal professions particularly were more likely to report moderate to severe symptoms of depression when compared
with the total sample.
It also revealed that legal professionals are more likely to use alcohol and other drugs to reduce or manage feelings of sadness and
depression when compared with other professional groups.
I recently read an article by a lawyer who used to appear before me as a barrister who is now an associate professor of law at the
University of Sydney. As a barrister he was clever, persuasive, amusing and almost certainly had a bright future at the bar. While
I only speculate, I suspect he elected for a life in academia because life at the bar, for him, created demands he was not prepared
to meet. His article concerned billable hours, the method mostly used by firms of solicitors to determine what they charge clients.
It was a critical analysis. His article commenced with what is probably a contemporary parable. I quote what he said. A bright young
associate of a large New York law firm was invited by her supervising partner and his wife to visit their beachfront holiday house
in the Hamptons for the weekend. As the associate gazed at the sea view, spread out before her, she noticed a painting on the wall.
"Is that a Matisse?" she asked reverently. "It certainly is" said the ageing partner. He put an avuncular arm around her shoulders
and continued:
"You've been working very hard lately putting in the billables -- 11, 12, 13 hours a day on most weekends -- and I and my family and
my 70 partners appreciate it a lot. And if you keep working that way for, say, the next seven or eight years, and forego most of
your holidays and avoid the lure of domesticity, and keep coming in way over budget, you know what will happen?" "No. What?" said
the young woman her expectant eyes fixed on the painting. "I will buy another Matisse" said the partner.
Now lest the parents in the audience are dismayed by the tone of this address knowing the extraordinary effort and commitment their
children have made to reach this point of graduating in law, can I come back to my older son, his graduation and the real point of
this address.
While the judge and lawyer in me was mortified at his late entry and his efforts to get to his allocated seat, the parent in me was
quietly proud. The graduation ceremony was celebrating a group of creative young men and women who were, at least for a significant
number of them, entering in due course a world where they could express their creativity though obviously in the confines of professional
practice.
My son's response to his dilemma was creative in a minor sort of way but generally accorded with the celebration we were all involved
in. He had the capacity not to take himself or the occasion too seriously.
The practice of law can also be a world of creativity exposing you to the worlds of many others. It can be enormously rewarding in
many ways and can be constantly intellectually stimulating. Sometimes I reflect how, as a judge, I have the enormous privilege of
being taken into the lives of businessmen and women, bankrupts, asylum seekers and Indigenous Australians, to give but a few examples,
as they struggle to resolve disputes through the court system. For you, practising law will give you the opportunity of defending
the powerless and ameliorating the effects of some of the excesses that are present in our economic and political systems. To be
able to do this is, in a sense, a great privilege. The practice of law will also enable you to participate in the development and
economic growth of Australia.
However, the legal world is, overall, a very serious one. The lives and fortunes of others can vitally depend on your expertise, as
lawyers, and your knowledge, wisdom and judgment. However, what I think is fundamentally important for you if you are proposing to
enter this world is that you do not lose your sense of perspective. You should constantly aspire to maintain a balanced life. The
law cannot and should not be your entire life. There may be some of you who have abandoned interests and passions in order to focus
on your studies. I urge you to re embrace those interests and passions. I say this as someone who, as Rat from Wind in the Willows
would say, likes messing about with boats and as someone who is also a keen fisherman.
In addition to urging you to re embrace interests and passions, I also pose the following challenge for you. While not immediately,
you may be able to provide in due course leadership within the legal profession to steer it back on a more sustainable path. It is
also important to bear in mind that the practice of law is no longer linear, leading, for the very successful, to partnership in
a firm or appointment as senior counsel. I have the good fortune of doing some work overseas, mainly in Asia, in assisting the judiciaries
of other countries to strengthen their judicial systems in the face of rapid economic development. In the process I meet Australian
lawyers who have, after a period of practising in the private profession, moved on to engage in work of the same character.
I was recently entering the United States and slowly proceeding through customs and immigration along one of those winding races which
take you up and down the same space at least half a dozen times. You tend to pass the same people, either slightly ahead or slightly
behind you, the same number of times. On this occasion, one repeating face was familiar but recognized by me only in the last lap.
It was Roland Rich, until recently the guiding hand at the ANU's very important centre for democratic institutions. He was heading
for New York to take up a position with the United Nations handling grants for projects promoting democracy in countries in transition.
Roland had practised law many years earlier in a large firm but had decided to move in other directions. I only mention this to illustrate
that there can be, for those who want to make it, a life beyond the law. This will doubtless be the future for some of you and for
others, I hope, you will find a rewarding professional career beginning and ending in the legal profession. But, as I urge you, maintain
the balance.
Can I conclude by taking the liberty of referring to my younger son, a couple of years younger than the aspiring architect. I mentioned
to him that I was giving this address and I broadly described the theme. Lawyers should be alert to depression. Not always too serious.
Their lives should be balanced. Most of you would have seen either in real life or cartoons the archetypical clown. The clown has
a large red nose which honks when you squeeze it. My younger son suggested that to set the tone for this address, I should come to
the lectern with a large red nose, announce "Hi, I'm Justice Moore" and honk my nose twice. I gave this suggestion serious consideration
but ultimately decided to reject it. I thought it might appear to some to be undignified behaviour for a federal judge. But it would
have been fun. Thank you.
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