It’s an exceptionally bright and sunny winter’s day when I head into Perth’s CBD to interview High Court Justice the Honourable Michelle Gordon AC.
Exceptional is a word that will feature a lot when it comes to Justice Gordon. Born in Perth in 1964, she was the first in her family to go to university and wasn’t sure she liked law school.
She threw herself into the law, nevertheless, taking the unusual step of securing work at law firm Robinson Cox throughout her law degree, before graduating to an internship at leading London chambers 1 Brick Court, which, she admits, was “unheard of in those days”.
On her return to Australia, she was seconded to Melbourne for a year because her diligence and work ethic meant she had so much more experience than the other graduates. That experience was Western Australia’s loss: she never came back.
Instead, she became a senior associate at Arthur Robinson & Hedderwicks, then a barrister. She took silk in 2003, and was appointed a judge of the Federal Court in 2007. In 2015, she became the fifth woman to ever be appointed to the High Court bench.
But perhaps the most exceptional thing about Justice Gordon is that she doesn’t think she’s exceptional at all.
“I was not an exceptional student,” she says. “I did very well in some subjects, very poorly in others. All the way through my life, at every point, I’ve had people who have seen something in me that I haven’t seen in myself and have backed me in ways that I’m forever grateful for.”
Better than the boys
While she might insist she wasn’t an exceptional student, Justice Gordon’s work ethic is unarguable. She’s known for her forensic ability and stamina in overseeing complex litigation and her thoroughness in reading cases and translating them into accessible, understandable judgments.
“I hope, at the end of the day, people will say these things of me. One is that she worked hard and listened. Second, her approach was small and certain. Third, that she always identified principles in a consistent way that didn’t wax and wane. And fourth, that her judgments were written in a way that was comprehensible.”
That commitment to hard work is the vein that runs through her career, from her time as a law student to sitting on the bench.
“When I got my senior associateship, the boys said to me – we all got appointed at one time – and the boys turned to me and said: ‘You worked harder than anyone else to get this and out of anyone in this group, you deserve it.’ And I said, ‘Really?’. And they said, ‘Yep’. And I think that was right. I wanted to be known for doing really good work and showing initiative. I had to work doubly hard because you had to do it better than the boys in those days.”
Being the squeaky wheel
As a family with a lower socio-economic background – Justice Gordon tells me her father was born into abject poverty in Scotland – as well as being a woman, promoting diversity and championing the under-represented is a subject dear to her heart.
“I have the privilege to be the patron of the Victorian Bar Foundation, which is the charitable arm of the Victorian Bar. We run really fabulous programs for socio-economically disadvantaged legal studies students in Years 11 or 12, and culturally marginalised law students,” she tells me. “I speak to every intake and I always say at the end – ask me any questions. A few years ago, a culturally diverse student put his hand up and said, ‘When do you think someone looking like me will be on the bench?’ I said, ‘Not soon enough.’ And I thought, ‘Don’t sit there and just say that, Michelle. You’ve got to do something about it’.” So she did.
As a lecturer at Melbourne Law School, Justice Gordon mentors emerging law students and sees teaching as her way of giving something back.
“Everything I’ve had, I’m ever so grateful for. Because I wouldn’t have done it. I didn’t have the money, I didn’t have the capital, I didn’t have the family. I was the first to go to university. There’s plenty of people out there who need the same push.”
It’s this philosophy that led to her involvement in the Hume Student’s Program, which provides a scholarship and mentoring to the top legal studies students at one of 16 schools in the lowest socio-economic council areas in Melbourne.
“I get the privilege of announcing them and giving [the awards] out,” she tells me with her eyes twinkling. “Anyway, this most gorgeous girl got one. I said to her, what are you going to do at university, because she was clearly so bright. She told me her mum and dad didn’t want her to go. I said ‘Really? Where’s Dad?’ ‘Over there,’ she said. I said, ‘Introduce me’. He was very polite. I told him she was exceptional. He said ‘I know’. I was very soft, but I said the community, your community and my community, we need her educated to the highest possible level. I said, ‘I want you to think about it. Then come to my chambers and ask me all the questions you like.’ They came and, to cut a long story short, she went to university. Those are things that matter. Sometimes you’ve got to ask.”
And Justice Gordon hasn’t stopped asking. She recently wrote to the Victorian Bar Council to argue that the bar exam was a barrier to entry and that it should be changed to encourage diversity in the profession. “I, and a number of others, got grumpy with the Victorian Bar. If I had been up against the system that has just been changed, I wouldn’t have gone to the Bar, I couldn’t have afforded to. And I probably wouldn’t have passed the exam because of the way it was structured. Sometimes you need to be a squeaky wheel when you’re in my position.”
Thanks to that squeaky wheel and the efforts of so many others, the Victorian Bar subsequently restructured and reformed the bar exam.
The importance of life experience
I get the feeling you wouldn’t want to take Justice Gordon on. She’s a fierce advocate for the law, with such a passion for constructing and arguing a case, that she was asked to be a judge four times before she said yes.
“I was too young and I didn’t have the experience,” she explains. “I think it was completely the right decision at the time. If you’re sitting there and you can’t at any level relate to the facts and the people in front of you, I think your job is more difficult. To judge matters involving all of those human endeavours, you have to have lived a bit. And I suspect that’s why I didn’t like law school.”
It also sounds as though Justice Gordon almost loved the arguing of the law too much to leave it.
“I was having such a lot of fun doing really interesting work. I got the endorphins from putting together a case for a client and arguing it. I remember when I was offered the fourth time, I went to see my mentor, we’d worked together for years and he knew me really well. I said to him, ‘What replaces that?’ And he said, ‘Running a good trial.’
“What I’ve learned over the last 18 years is that the role of a judicial officer has changed and my lodestar now is making sure that we continue to make changes – both big and small – to the administration of justice in this country as part of running a good trial. This ensures – because we live in a very complex world – that those who are either about to enter the system, are in the system, or leave the system have the best outcomes substantively, procedurally and participatorily.
“Little things and small things make change.”
Embracing the future
There’s a quiet optimism to Justice Gordon’s measured, thoughtful answers. The subject of AI draws a positive reaction, her response both highlighting its possibilities for the future of Australian law and triumphing what has already been achieved.
“Someone put it to me recently that although AI might have been able to draft the dissenting judgment in the Mabo decision, it is unlikely to have been able to draft the lead judgment of Brennan J, because it was just so nuanced and out of left field. Human involvement in the justice system remains critical.
“I think that lawyers who don’t know how to use AI will be out, lawyers who do know how to use it will be in,” she continues. “But what’s really interesting – and it comes back to where we started – is that the lawyers with life experience that use AI are the ones who will bring critical thinking and life experience to it. They are the ones who can take what they are given and develop it and nuance it.
“AI is a reality of the world today and will only grow in significance. I think there’s a real role for it to play and I think we should really lean in. I think it’s time for government working with the courts to put some money in, some proper investment. We need to respond to the risks of AI but also welcome the opportunities it will bring.”
With 18 years of having been a judge under her belt, and mandatory retirement at the age of 70 approaching, is there a part of Justice Gordon that would like to stay on, as she would in the equivalent American system?
“No,” she says firmly. “The institution is bigger than us. We are the custodians of it only. It’s larger and more enduring than any one of us. There’s got to be change.
“But we don’t have a monopoly on ideas. The youth – for example my son with 30 something years between us – his ideas and his way of thinking is radically different from mine. Why would you not want to tap into that for the benefit of society? I think there has to be a renewal.”
This calm acceptance that she’s part of something bigger and that her time on the bench is finite fits in with Justice Gordon’s philosophy.
“I have a mantra,” she says. “Small and certain. Fight small, fight certain. If you want to incrementally change, you do what is absolutely necessary and no more. You want to know why? If you don’t, you’re just being so egotistical.”
Justice Gordon focuses on humility. As a trial judge, she would ask the Court Registrars to invite each member of counsel and the solicitors involved in the case to say (without attribution) what the Court did wrong, what could have been done better, and how the process might be improved.
“It was humbling, reminding me that I did not have all the answers,” she says. “All of us can learn much from the experience of others.”
A wonderful life
There’s also the overriding sense of wonder that it was largely the actions of other people that have propelled her to where she is now, effecting change by doing something she loves.
“My early life was typified by people giving me opportunities – I don’t really know why I deserved them,” she says. “I’ve been fortunate all along. But every time someone has given me an opportunity, I’ve thought, ‘Alright, you’ve told me I should really do this and that I’m up to it,’ and I’ve just worked really hard.
“We live in a world where it’s changing and we have to keep challenging ourselves. We really do. The little things we do and the big things we do – it’s exciting, I think. I’m still excited by it.
“I have a very lovely life,” she says, when we come to the end of our time together. “I stop work on Friday night and don’t work again until Sunday morning. It’s sacrosanct in our house. It’s important. We have a beautiful property that we are the custodians of, that I try to go to as often as possible. I love the water, being from Perth. Last weekend was my first swim in the freezing water for a couple of months. I love the beach. We have a lovely involvement with arts and music in Melbourne and, most importantly, my family and my friends are just the best.”
Like everything else about Justice Gordon, her gratitude is compelling.
Exceptionally so.
This article originally appeared in Issue 52, December 2025, of the Brief magazine, produced by the Law Society.
Issue 53 is due to be published and posted to Law Society members in late June 2026.
