News
Cite as: (2009) 83(06) LIJ, p.25
Judge Gerard Mullaly was welcomed to the County Court of Victoria on 21 April. Among the speakers was LIV president Danny Barlow. This is an edited version of his speech.
Your Honour had seven and a half years in solicitors’ offices before
going to the Bar, and a further two years in 2000 and 2001, when you left the
Bar and joined the firm of Stary George Myall, becoming a partner in Stary
Myall.
You served articles with David Halstead at Maurice Blackburn & Co, and
remained with that firm for two years. You also worked closely with John Price
during this time.
At Maurice Blackburn, you worked in the personal injuries department –
Workcare (as it was then called) and also common law claims. You had only
limited involvement in the criminal law practice of the firm.
Partners and staff at Maurice Blackburn run, from time to time, in charity
fun runs. Good naturedly, you joined in one such 10 kilometre run. With
characteristic modesty, you’d not mentioned your running history –
and your work colleagues were dazzled by your performance on the day.
A hallmark of your practice is the depth of your social conscience and
commitment. You began your professional career at Maurice Blackburn, the oldest
established union movement firm in Melbourne, dating back to 1919. William
Slater and Clyde Holding each served their articles there.
You then moved to the criminal law division of the Legal Aid Commission of
Victoria, first in Melbourne, then Geelong.
In those rather early days of the evolution of the solicitor advocate, your
Honour was the first Legal Aid Commission lawyer in the Geelong office to
conduct serious criminal trials.
Your instructors all speak of your utter dedication, your thoroughness and
attention to detail.
In the representation of Mr Lindberg before the Cole Inquiry into the AWB,
your instructing solicitor nicknamed you “the Oracle”. You were so
immersed in the case that you had every detail in your head.
More than a year after the Inquiry, your leader, now Judge Allen, Mr
Lindberg’s new senior counsel in subsequent proceedings, consulted with
your Honour. Astonishingly, a year after the event you still had all the detail
absolutely at your fingertips.
Your Honour was also very obliging to your instructing solicitors. Late last
year, an instructor sought you for a bail application in a drugs case. You said
you had an important family engagement that afternoon. Your instructor, in good
faith, said he was sure you’d be away by lunchtime.
Your client got bail – but you didn’t finish until after 4pm.
You observed that, being so very late for your afternoon family commitment,
you would now have to make an application on your own behalf before a very
different tribunal!
Your Honour will be sorely missed by your regular instructing solicitors, but
they are consoled in the knowledge that the Court and the community are very
well served by your appointment.
In Geelong, where you live, you have for a very long time worked to support
the community services organisation Bethany Community Support. You chaired the
board of management for eight years, and were made a life governor last
year.
Also last year, you received the Rotary Community Service Award for 2008.
You have served on the board of the Geelong Community Legal Service, and
currently serve on the board of the Geelong Art Gallery.
Your Honour and most others in court today must have been wondering when this
would be said. Your Honour is, of course, not the first Mullaly to sit on the
Bench of this Court.
Your Honour’s father, Paul Mullaly, retired from this Court in 2001
after more than 22 years distinguished service as a judge. Before that, his
Honour was a Prosecutor for the Queen for 17 and a half years – and also
Crown Counsel for the last two of those years.
You took pains to advise the listing clerks of the cases in which you were
briefed so as to be sure never to be listed in front of your father.
One day, however, the trial judge in one of your cases was indisposed, and
your Honour’s father was sent down to attend to the adjournment.
It is a measure of your scrupulous care and integrity that you declined to
apply for a certificate under the Appeal Costs Fund Act. No-one could have
faulted an application in such an absolutely clear-cut situation. Your Honour
ensured by other means that your client was in no way disadvantaged, but you did
not apply for a certificate.
Neither as a prosecutor nor as a judge, nor even since his retirement from
the Court, has anyone known your Honour’s father to be at a loss for
words.
I am reliably informed and verily believe that his Honour was rendered
speechless when, on the day your appointment was announced, you told your father
the happy news.
On behalf of the LIV and the solicitors of this state, I wish your Honour joy
in your appointment, and long, satisfying and distinguished service as a judge
of this Court.