Bill Madden, National Practice Group Leader, Slater & Gordon

As National Practice Group Leader of the Medical Law Group at Slater & Gordon, Bill is regarded as one of Australia’s foremost commentators on medico-legal issues. He has been a lawyer with Slater & Gordon since 2001, and a practising solicitor for more than 30 years. Bill is a member of various professional committees, an editorial board member for various medical law journals and publications, and has co-authored two books, Health Care and the Law, and Australian Medical Liability. Bill is also an Adjunct Fellow with the University’s School of Law.

A transcript of the Occasional Address, delivered by Bill Madden:

“Chancellor, Vice-Chancellor, ladies & gentlemen, and of course graduates.

Your graduation today is an important event. You deserve recognition today for your achievement, and of course my congratulations.

It is important that so many family and friends are here, to celebrate with you. Their role is more than that of an audience. It has been (and will be in future) the provision of encouragement, reassurance and sometimes useful financial assistance, along the way.

Days like today are important also for this University, with traditions that can be traced back to the establishment of well-known universities like Oxford and Cambridge almost 1000 years ago.

Yet the recognised value in learning and research persists and so this university exists today, to provide a service for you and others. It is not merely the land, the buildings and certainly is not the car parking facilities. The university is a community of its dedicated academic staff, it students and now you as its alumni.

The university and its law school will want you to maintain a close relationship and to return here, not only for further study if you wish, but so that future students can benefit from the skills and insights which you will gain.

I should say something about studying law, and about legal practice. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of NSW, Jim Spigelman, retired last year. For the farewell speech, the President of the Law Society asked one of his old law school teachers, whether it was true that Mr Spigelman argued a lot during lectures. The teacher said this was unlikely, as the Chief Justice as a student very rarely turned up for law lectures. Some of you have modelled your career plan on his.

The law is increasingly less about rote learning. The value in your degree will be found in the skills you’ve developed in research, in critical analysis and in communication.

Many of you will wish to practice as solicitors. That community is not as large as you may think. 10% of the solicitors in practice last year had been admitted for less than a year. So even in your first year, you will form a very significant part of the profession.

Law and legal practice will continue to change. Not long after I started work, we held a partners’ meeting to debate the purchase of a new piece of technology - the ‘fax machine’. It cost about the same as a car, but would let us communicate quickly with our clients. Who unfortunately did not yet own fax machines.

The subsequent developments in communication and access to information have transformed legal services. Legal practices have become much bigger and, increasingly, law firms deal with international issues that ignore geographic and political boundaries.

But for many lawyers their important role is the same - to help ordinary people with their problems. Problems like those of Henry and Susannah Cable, who made a claim against the ship ‘Alexander’, for the loss of their goods on the way to Sydney. Henry and Susannah were convicts, that claim was made in July 1788, the ship was part of the three that formed the First Fleet. And yes, they won.

So, what comes next? That is of course up to you. From my small graduating year there are now a number of judges, politicians, business leaders and law school professors. Your year will be no different.

Probably you will want to start by finding a suitable position and learning to do it well. When my old university asked its recent graduating students about their longer term aspirations, the students spoke of purpose, meaning, integrity and relationships. I hope that you can be successful in those important areas.

I have a photograph of a university friend taken at our graduation ceremony, in the photo he is pointing at his feet. He had worn shoes, to the ceremony. That was unusual, for him. He is a well-regarded criminal law judge now; we are still good friends.

So my suggestion is that when this ceremony is complete, you should go outside and take lots of photos. Keep them somewhere safe. Those photographs will an important reminder of this significant day in your life, and of the family and friends who have supported you along the way.

You may think the academic gowns are a bit quaint, but in 30 years’ time the fashionable clothes you have on underneath will be far more amusing.”

Photos: Sally Tsoutas