Monash Law launches Diamond Jubilee year with a glittering celebration
Monash Law has launched a year of celebrations for its Diamond Jubilee with an evening of surprises in the company of alumni from all six decades.
To celebrate 60 years of legal education, a number of alumni, industry partners, donors and graduate employers were privileged to hear the Monash Law memories of guest speakers including Professor the Hon Marilyn Warren AC, the Hon Justice Ray Finkelstein AO KC, Professor Melissa Castan and Rhodes Scholar Harrison Jones.
The 60th anniversary launch event marked the first public external event for Professor Sharon Pickering as Vice Chancellor of Monash University. It was also the last public external event for Professor Bryan Horrigan in his role as Executive Dean of the Faculty of Law. In his welcoming remarks Prof Horrigan took the opportunity to welcome Professor Marilyn Pittard, his successor and Interim Dean of Monash Law from 4th of March, 2024.
Opening the event, Prof Pickering took the audience back to 1964 when the Monash Law Bachelor of Laws (LLB) course was yet to be recognised by the Board of Examiners, or the Council of Legal Education.
"I just learned this evening from one of the pioneer alumni that they were forewarned that they had enrolled in a course that was not accredited," shared Prof Pickering.
"So, this pioneering group was a very brave group indeed. They were also a group that was very much ready to challenge the status quo of legal studies in Australia and I think in many ways that bravery typifies the Monash Law School over many years,"
Prof Pickering expressed Monash University’s pride that the current Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Victoria, the Honourable Anne Ferguson, and her predecessor, Professor the Hon Marilyn Warren AC, are Monash alumni. The current Chief Justice of the Federal Court, the Honourable Debbie Mortimer, and the former Chief Justice of the Family Court of Australia, the Honourable Diana Bryant AO KC, are also alumni.
“You are the law school,” she told the gathered alumni. “You are the marker of our success. Established as only the second law school in Victoria, Monash Law was, from its very beginning, a place of innovation, a very different kind of law school,” confirmed Prof Pickering.
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Executive Dean of Law, Prof Bryan Horrigan speaking at Monash Law Celebrating 60 years launch event
As the University's longest serving Dean of Law and currently the longest serving Dean of Law in Australia, Prof Bryan Horrigan shared his pride in Monash Law’s research, moot court outcomes and the Clinical Guarantee.
“As the only law school of more than 40 in Australia that offers a Clinical Guarantee, we are now offering more than 700 clinical spaces annually in a clinical program that is more diverse than ever - in topic areas ranging from our mainstays of professional practice and family law to capital punishment, AI and tech, Afghan and refugee support, corporate social responsibility, modern slavery and human rights,” revealed Prof Horrigan.
“As the largest single Australian and Victorian provider of access to justice by supervised student clinics, we have thousands of clients from Victoria, Australia and the nearby regions. We're doing our best for clients who really need legal help and cannot afford it.”
The 'Celebrating 60 years in 2024' video premiered at the launch of Monash Law's Diamond Jubilee
Geraldine Johns-Putra is an eminent graduate of Monash University and a Monash Law alumni who invoked her own time as a student in proposing a toast to the Law School’s 60th anniversary.
“I'm not sure if Sir David Derham and the likes of Professor Louis Waller, who was my criminal law professor, and the small band of staff who were tasked with creating the Monash Law School could have truly envisioned the impact, the achievements and success of the Monash Law School - and you, its alumni, in such a short time,” declared Ms Johns-Putra.
Monash Law alumna and Monash University Council member Geraldine Johns-Putra proposed a toast to Monash Law
Neither could anyone have envisioned the powerful memories that would emerge as four Monash Law alumni from across the decades sat down to share their memories.
The Hon Ray Finkelstein AO KC is a Pioneer Alumni from the Monash Law class commencing 1965. He’s a former Judge of the Federal Court of Australia, Former Commissioner and Chair of the Royal Commission into the Casino Operator and License for Crown Casino Victoria, and eponym of the Ray Finkelstein Student Scholarship is named, with generous support from Arnold Bloch Leibler.
“I want to make a complaint,” began Mr Finkelstein. “I've been waiting 40 years to complain about my first year at Monash, which was 1965 and this is the opportunity.”
“I want to complain about the mud. I had to walk from the car park to a non-existent law building which was called the Engineering Faculty. I couldn't find my lecture rooms, I couldn't find anything, and I trudged through the mud.”
Thankfully, Mr Finkelstein’s memories of Monash weren’t all stained with wet dirt.
“They regularly, in the Union Hall, had Max Merritt and the Meteors. They were a great rock group, I never missed one single concert. It was worth going to Monash just for that,” conceded Mr Finkelstein.
Professor the Honourable Marilyn Warren AC, the Hon Ray Finkelstein AO KC, Professor Melissa Castan, Professor Bryan Horrigan and Rhodes Scholar Harrison Jones
Professor the Honourable Marilyn Warren AC is a Monash Law alumna who commenced her studies in 1968. She's the first female Chief Justice of any state Supreme Court, and her first lecture was given by Professor Louis Waller AO, who would shortly after become Dean of the Faculty of Law. Monash University has presented Professor Warren with a Distinguished Alumni Award and an honorary doctorate.
“1968 was the year of world revolutions. There were student protests in Paris, in Rome, all around the world. There were major civil rights protests in the United States and we had the Vietnam War, conscription being fought against in Australia,” reflected Prof Warren.
While she didn’t recall Monash Law students actively participating in protests on campus, Prof Warren remembers the action taking place among the first students to use the new Sir David Derham Law School Building.
“The revolution was actually going on inside the law school because there we were being taught with revolutionary teaching methods, the Socratic Method. And we were learning not just what the law was, we were taught what the law ought to be.”
“It really was a radical law school. We were taught about US law reform. We were introduced in Torts to Ralph Nader and his work on consumerism law. We learned about civil rights in constitutional law,” shared Prof Warren.
“These were topics that were not taught before, by and large, in Australian law schools, so we had a real sense of being within the revolution. Although perhaps we didn't quite realise it at the time.”
Alumni from across the generations can be found in this slideshow that was screened throughout the launch of Monash Law's Diamond Jubilee
Professor Melissa Castan is a Monash Law alumna who commenced in the late 1980s and graduated in the early 1990s. She is the Director of the Castan Centre for Human Rights Law, which is named after her father, the late Ron Castan. She's worked in that centre since its establishment in 2000.
Prof Castan’s memory of Monash Law still serves as good advice for law students.
“I was struggling a bit with constitutional law, and I really liked it as a student,” remembers Ms Castan.
“My tutor came up to me separately outside of class and said, ‘You know, if you want an HD in constitutional law, you'll have to read the whole of the Tasmanian Dam case’. And I looked at her in horror because it's 242 pages or whatever. I went, ‘Really? I have to read the whole case?’ And she went, ‘Yeah’.”
“So as the obedient law student that I was, I went ahead and just sat down and read the whole of the Tasmanian Dam case, and consequently have gone on to a very fruitful understanding of the constitution that's carried me forward.”
Harrison Jones is one of two Rhodes Scholars from Monash Law currently studying at Oxford University. He graduated from Monash University in 2021 with a Bachelor of Laws (First Class Honours) (Medal) and Bachelor of Arts (International Relations). In addition Mr Jones was awarded the Supreme Court Prize for the Best Honours Student, the University Medal for Undergraduate Academic Achievement (Law) and the Sir John Monash Medal for Outstanding Achievement (Law).
Mr Jones’s very recent memories of Monash Law were about the additional extras that the Law School offers, such as Clinical Legal Education in places such as Springvale and Oakleigh.
“Saying the suburb names Springvale and Oakleigh means something different to a Monash Law student because there's such an embedded sense that you participate in those programs - you're expected to do things outside of just studying,” reflected Mr Jones.
“What I noticed in my brief time in legal practice in Melbourne before I came to Oxford was that that has a really tangible impact when clerks come into a law firm and Monash Law students have already been in a professional environment. They've already picked up the phone and called the registry. They've already had to take instructions from someone and they already have a sense of how to deal with clients and the application of the law in the real world.”
As evidence of the reverberating impact of Monash Law, 60 years after its first student intake in 1964, alumni in the audience included:
- Prof the Hon Marilyn Warren AC KC, Vice Chancellor's Professorial Fellow, former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Victoria
- The Honourable Ray Finkelstein AO KC, former Solicitor-General for Victoria - 1992, Judge of the Federal Court of Australia - 1997 - 2011, President of the Australian Competition Tribunal - 2008 - 2011
- The Hon Justice Richard Niall KC, former Solicitor-General for Victoria, now Justice of the Supreme Court of Victoria
- Mr Damien Farrell, Vice President, Advancement with Monash University
- Prof John Thwaites AM, former Deputy Premier, Chair of both the Monash Sustainable Development Institute and Climateworks, and Co-Chair of the Leadership Council of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network launched by the UN Secretary-General
- Prof Marilyn Pittard, Interim Dean of Monash Law from 4th of March, 2024
- The Hon Tony Pagone AM KC, former judge of the Supreme Court of Victoria, and then the Federal Court of Australia, former Commissioner and Chair for the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety, former President and now Honorary President of the International Association of Judges, and jurist in residence at Monash Law
- The Hon Michael Rozenes AO KC, former Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions and former Chief Judge of the County Court of Victoria
- The Hon Justice Shane Marshall AM, former Federal Court judge and the first Monash Law graduate to be appointed to a federal court of Superior Record, and Patron of the South-East Monash Legal Service
- The Hon Justice Anthony Cavanough, Supreme Court of Victoria
- The Hon Justice Michael Croucher, Supreme Court of Victoria
- The Hon Justice James Elliott, Supreme Court of Victoria
- Her Hon Judge Sara Hinchey, County Court of Victoria and former State Coroner
- Coroner Simon McGregor
- Deborah Glass OBE, Victorian Ombudsman and recipient of a Monash Distinguished Alumni Award in 2016
- The Hon Nahum Mushin AM, former Adjunct Professor on the Teaching Staff of Monash Law, former Head of the Monash Oakleigh Legal Service, and current Distinguished Affiliate of Monash Law Clinics, and
- Former Dean of the Faculty of Law (2004-2012) Emeritus Professor Arie Freiberg AM.
The launch of the Monash Law Diamond Jubilee was also celebrated by members of the judiciary including:
- The Hon Chief Justice William Alstergren AO KC, Chief Justice of the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia, and
- Dr Bryan Keon-Cohen AM KC, who along with the late Ron Castan, after whom the Castan Centre for Human Rights Law is named, represented Eddie Mabo and others in the Mabo case.
Vice Chancellor's Professorial Fellow and Associate of the School of Music, Professor Paul Grabowsky AO, Rhea John, Oska Morrison-Petersen and Harsha Rajkumar.
In a glittering night of surprises and firsts, the audience was treated to a music performance from Professor Paul Grabowsky AO, Vice Chancellor's Professorial Fellow and Associate of the School of Music. Prof Grabowsky played piano and was joined by Oska Morrison-Petersen on drums, Harsha Rajkumar on bass and Rhea John on vocals.
To join the Monash Law celebration of 60 years, head to the Celebrating 60 Years webpage where you can find out about events taking place throughout the year. You’ll also find an opportunity to sign up to our mailing list and details on how you can support the Monash Law 60th Anniversary Fund. Alumni are especially encouraged to update their details and submit their preferences for reunion activities.