The new chief justice of Queensland … Biographical details … Empathy and smarts … From legal secretary to lead singer with the Supremes … Sir Terence O’Rort reports from Brisbane
She takes over from Catherine Holmes on March 19 after six months as the court’s senior judge administrator, four-and-a-half years on the Supreme Court, more than three-and-a-half years as a judge of the District Court and about 24 years at the bar where she practised in public, administrative and commercial law, with a strong focus on native title work.
Among her papers and speeches, she has laid emphasis on the trauma and stress affecting prosecutors and judges and how to deal with it.
She is certainly well regarded among colleagues at the Queen Elizabeth 11 Cauldron.
Reports filtering into our ears indicate that many were surprised she took an appointment at the District Court as the Federal Court at the time hoped to snaffle her because of her native title abilities.
She also sat on the planning and environment court and the children’s court and mastered complex criminal trials, which she had not done at the bar.
When a vacancy came up in 2017 the Supremes nabbed her before the Feds could.
The path to the top was not easy. Like Justice Susan Kiefel she began as a secretary to a bunch of barristers, which included the now Justice Debra Mullins. While working full-time she studied at QUT, graduating with first-class honours and the university medal in law. Some achievement.
She was an associate to Douglas Drummond on the Federal Court, went to the Grill in 1998 and was silked 15 years later.
She made some charming asides when sworn to the Supreme Court in July 2017:
“I have previously confessed, in an equally intimate setting, to being somewhat terrified about being one of the centres of attention on an occasion such as this. So, with due acknowledgement to both Oscar Wilde and the now Justice Katzmann who made this reference when Justice Jagot was sworn in as a Judge of the Federal Court after serving for about two years on the Land and Environment Court of New South Wales, it might be said that to find myself the focus of one swearing-in or welcome ceremony is a misfortune, but to be the focus at two, in a fairly short period of time, looks like carelessness.”
And there was a revealing confession:
“I’ve never really harboured any specific ambitions in my legal career. I’ve just tried to work hard at whatever I was doing and taken advantage of opportunities when they arose. But in moments of disillusion with the law, of which there have been some, there is one ambition I have secretly harboured, which was to be a jazz singer in a classy nightclub.
“In all honesty, I have to admit that never had any chance at all of coming to fruition. But I have now joined the Supremes, so perhaps that will have to do.”
The Days of Bluto are an unmentionable bad dream.