By The Hon Justice Lemonis
The speech is reproduced below with permission and minor edits.
To all of the new members of the legal profession that are here today, congratulations on your achievements so far, and welcome to the profession.
This stage of your career is an exciting one, but it also can at times be a nerve racking one.
So, what I want to do this morning is talk about some things that can help make your career rewarding, and one that you will look back on fondly.
I will talk a bit about my own experiences, but this talk is definitely not about me, this talk is about you.
I have three wishes, if you like, for what I am about to say.
First, that what I say gives you more confidence about life in the profession, second, it makes you reassess what success means for you in the profession, and third, it gets you talking about the type of collegiate culture that you would want to work in. I am not going to tell you about your professional responsibilities, although I will say something about responsibility at the end.
Before I say anything more though, I’m going to put up on the screen a reproduction of a mousepad that my associates once gave me for Christmas. It sets out five things that I always carry on about, and which resonated with them in their time with me. You don’t have to read it now, but I will come back to it at times to illustrate some of the things I will discuss. And, hopefully you get a sense from the mouse pad that a career in law doesn’t always have to be about serious moments.
[insert reproduction of mousepad]
So then, confidence.
One of the most important things about confidence is realising that it is okay to be nervous.
People at your stage of their career get nervous, much more senior people get nervous and judges get nervous. So, don’t think there’s anything wrong about being nervous.
Let me give you an example from very early on in my career. The first time I went down to court I was told by my principal, who later became a very dear friend, this: if you lose don’t come back. Now of course it was said jokingly, but it did make me nervous because I thought, obviously this court appearance must be completely unlosable if he said that!
If we go the mousepad image and points 2 and 3, what I did was just focus on the application itself, ignored that it was supposedly unlosable, and I went back to basics, making sure I knew what rules of court applied. And, whenever you are nervous, or whenever you are grappling with something difficult, going back to basics is invaluable.
This did not for one moment mean that I was no longer nervous, but I was confident that I knew enough about what I was meant to be doing.
And this was all confirmed when a colleague of mine spoke to me after court. She said to me, quite earnestly: you spoke very well, I wouldn’t have known you were nervous at all, except your hand was shaking like a leaf.
And, there are still times when I will get nervous.
Questions from a jury can unsettle the calmest person. You never know what they may ask. Is it going to raise something I didn’t think about. Judges dread getting a polite question from the jury, and questions from juries are always polite, which asks, in effect, what on earth were you talking about when you spoke about issue X. But if that happens, then it must be fixed.
So please please remember that it’s okay to be nervous.
It’s also okay not to know things. This happens to everyone in the legal profession including judges.
What is important is you make sure you find out what you need to know.
I’m sure you will find, if you haven’t encountered this already, that lawyers love using labels, which sometimes are not very illuminating.
If there are any of you here like me who have Irish relatives, my mother is Irish, you might be familiar with the wonderful Irish expression ‘your man’, which the person speaking thinks explains precisely who they are talking about, but the person listening, often has little idea.
Well, often labels can be the lawyer’s equivalent of ‘your man’.
Corporate lawyers love to describe the issue by reference to a particular section of the Corporations Act – it’s a s 1324 issue – and criminal lawyers love to tell you to give a direction named after a case that was decided at least 25 years ago.
The other day I was shown the interpreters’ set up for an upcoming criminal trial. The person who was very helpfully explaining what was to happen, kept telling me about the PIC. I was racking my brain as to what this PIC was that the interpreters needed to use, and in the end I just asked. It turns out the PIC is shorthand for the person in custody.
If you don’t know, don’t panic, either ask or go and look it up afterwards.
And, you might be a bit surprised at the answer you get if you do ask. In my experience, it is not uncommon that the label doesn’t quite fit the scenario at hand.
So, don’t be afraid to ask if it is unclear.
Another thing that helps with confidence is to find a good mentor.
Now, I can tell you what a good mentor is not. A good mentor is not someone who is always going to agree with you. There is no point in having a mentor who is just a cheer squad. Instead, find a mentor whose values and opinions you respect and who you trust will tell you if they think you are on the wrong path.
I was very fortunate at the District Court to have some outstanding mentors, one of whom is at point 4 on the mousepad image, which for people who have been racking their brains as to what it means, stands for ‘what would Judge Bowden do’. It could also stand for what would Judge Burrows do.
They are mentors to many. My good friend Judge MacLean simply calls Judge Bowden, the great man. And, it would be remiss of me not to acknowledge this morning that in March he completed 19 years exceptional service as a Judge of this State.
Also, develop professional relationships outside of the organisation you are in. They don’t have to be within the legal profession. Gleeson CJ in a speech given in 2009 to a Judges’ Conference said that Judges can learn, not only from one another, but also from people who make decisions in other areas. That also applies to you.
Now I don’t mean to be critical of anyone by saying this, but if you limit your professional relationships to the organisation you are working in, then you can deprive yourself of the great benefit of being exposed to different thinking!
So that then, deals with confidence. Now, success.
What is success in the legal profession?
I expect some of you already have quite firm ideas on this.
For me, success isn’t status, it isn’t holding a particular position or working at a particular law firm, or in a particular government department. It also can change. So, don’t be too rigid in setting your goals.
When I got appointed to the District Court and to the Supreme Court, there might have been 15 to 20 other people who could have been appointed instead of me. I was one of those 15 to 20, and yes, what I had done in my career put me into that group, but my appointment itself was not anything I had control over.
If you asked me today what I think success as a judge looks like, I would tell you it is about the people in court feeling they have been treated fairly and respectfully, my colleagues having the trust to discuss with me issues they are grappling with, and my associates feeling they are in a positive learning environment. Seen in that way, it is the functions of my role as a judge that ground success, not the role itself.
If we just pause there. If one of your colleagues does ask for your advice, don’t see it as a hindrance. See it as a compliment and as a reflection of your own success.
Keep in mind that perceptions of success change over time.
If I was asked 10 years ago, where I would like to go if I was ever offered the chance to be a judge, I would have said the Supreme Court. That was where I practised the most, and I was somewhat apprehensive about how I would handle the confronting criminal work of the District Court.
Looking back now though, I could not be more grateful for the time I spent at the District Court. The friendships, the work, the responsibility of making decisions that will have life-long consequences. These are things that are the hallmarks of a fulfilling career that I had then, and am fortunate enough to still have now.
And try not to see success in a grand way by fixating on one major outcome. If you do that, you risk not recognising the value of now.
There is a wonderful story of two young businessmen in Sydney who went to speak to two old businessmen to borrow some money. One of the old businessmen asked them, why did you come to us. And the response was, because you’re old and rich, and we’re young and poor. To which the older businessman replied, I’ll swap you.
Now is an exciting time of your career, it’s a time of your career where you learn a lot about yourself and the values that are important to you, and it’s a time of your career where you will make lifelong friends. Value it and be excited by it.
Collegiality
Which then brings me to collegiality and culture and the responsibility bit.
I am sure you will have been told by now a lot about your professional responsibilities, but this is slightly different.
The former US Supreme Court Judge, Benjamin Cardozo, once said (and don’t worry, I’m not going quote law to you at this time of the morning) at a graduation speech given to the Albany Law School in New York on 10 June 1925:
‘The tests of character come to us silently, unawares, by slow and inaudible approaches. We hardly know that they are there, till lo! the hour has struck, and the choice has been made …’
Cardozo said at these times we must show the courage of adventurous youth.
Robert Kennedy in a speech given to members of the National Union of South African Students at the University of Cape Town on 6 June 1966 spoke of moral courage, saying that few are willing to brave the disapproval of their peers, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society and that moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence.
These sentiments are from a prior century and from different parts of the world, yet perhaps they resonate even more today.
This world is evolving at a great pace, and we need you to start thinking about what you want the culture of the profession to look like in the future. Yes, we constantly hear of AI. But the need for true character and moral courage remain and they cannot be dictated to by artificiality.
The adventurous youth that Cardozo spoke of is you.
Whether you did law straight out of school, or later in life, you are the adventurous youth of the legal profession, and we need you to set its culture for the future. To again use the words of Cardozo ‘You think I ask too much of you. I ask of you nothing that you are not competent to give.’
The future profession and its culture is not something that sits in my hands and it is not for me to tell you what that culture should be. I will not be part of the profession forever. I say this, despite all of my associates agreeing that I will never retire, one writing me a letter when she left earlier this year, saying she was looking forward to the judgments I write over my next 27 years or so as a judge.
I will however give you one tip that helps build the fabric of a collegiate culture. Celebrate the success of your colleagues. If you hear a compliment about them, pass it on. Compliment them yourself if you think they have done a good job. If you need any encouragement to do that, just think about how you feel when someone compliments you. I will leave you with one final example.
After a colleague of mine had finished an arduous criminal trial, I sent him a very brief e-mail, no more than 2 sentences, saying he had done a tremendous job. That very brief compliment was so greatly appreciated, he sent it on to his wife. It never occurred to me that might happen.
And that is all I want to say.
Thank you for listening. I have every confidence the future of the profession is in very safe hands, those hands being yours!
