Thought for this Issue: Counsel brings their Learning, Ability, Character and Firmness of Mind to the Conduct of Causes

When sworn in as Chief Justice of Australia on 21 April 1952, Sir Owen Dixon, OM, GCMG, PC – in reply to welcome of him from bench, bar and solicitors – said:

It is only too true that I came to the Bar a long time ago and I came to the Bench a long time ago. I have spent a little under 19 years at the Bar and I have spent a little over 23 years on the Bench …

The activities of the Bar are greater than those on the Bench and the responsibilities are no less. The Bar has traditionally been, over the centuries, one of the four original learned professions. It occupied that position in tradition because it formed part of the use and service of the Crown in the administration of justice. But because it was the duty of the barrister to stand between the subject and the Crown, and between the rich and the poor, the powerful and the weak, it is necessary that, while the Bar occupies an essential part in the administration of justice, the barrister should be completely independent and work entirely as an individual, drawing on his own resources of learning, ability and intelligence, and owing allegiance to none.

The work of solicitors in the administration of justice has the greatest possible importance, but their allegiance is perhaps more to their clients who have a more permanent or at all events a longer relation with them than the transitory relations between client and counsel when the full enthusiasms and force of the advocate are attached to the individual for a short space of time.

I would like to say from long experience on the Bench and a not much shorter experience at the Bar there is no more important contribution to the doing of justice than the elucidation of the facts and the ascertainment of what a case is really about, which is done before it comes to counsel’s hands. Counsel, who brings his learning, ability, character and firmness of mind to the conduct of causes and maintains the very high traditions of honour and independence of English advocacy, in my opinion makes a greater contribution to justice than the judge himself.

…

The courts and the legal profession stand as the necessary foundation of any community. Indeed it may be said that the courts and the system of law are both the foundation and the steel framework, but neither a foundation nor a steel framework is ever able to do more than support a structure with stability and at rest.

Lawyers are often criticised because their work is not constructive. It is not their business to contribute to the constructive activities of the community, but to keep the foundations and framework steady. Those who believe in a planned society should perceive that the rule of law administered by the courts offers a reconciliation of ordered liberty with planned control …

The full speech of Sir Owen Dixon may be found in the Preface Memoranda of (1952) 85 CLR pgs XI to XVI.