Access to justice: How much is too much?

Keynote speakers

We regret to announce that unfortunately our planned keynote speaker Rt. Hon. Lord Woolf is now unable to attend the conference due to unforeseen circumstances. We apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused. We are excited and pleased to announce that Sir Anthony Clarke MR will now present the first paper of the conference.

Sir Anthony Clarke MR
Master of the Rolls, Court of Appeal of England
Sir Anthony Clarke MR was appointed Master of the Rolls and Head of Civil Justice in 2005. He was called to the Bar (Middle Temple ) in 1965 and in 1979 became a QC and then a recorder sitting in both criminal and civil courts. Sir Anthony was appointed to the High Court Bench in 1993 and in April that year became the Admiralty Judge. He sat in the Commercial Court and the Crown Court trying commercial and criminal cases respectively. Appointed to the Court of Appeal in 1998 he was called upon to conduct first the Thames Safety Inquiry and in the following year the Marchioness and Bowbelle Inquiries.

Hon. Justice Diana Bryant
Chief Justice, Family Court of Australia
Justice Diana Bryant was appointed as Chief Justice of the Family Court of Australia in July 2004. Prior to this she was the inaugural Chief Federal Magistrate of the Federal Magistrates Court, having held that office since May 2000. Before her appointment to the bench, Chief Justice Bryant practised at the Victorian Bar from 1990 until 2000, specialising in family law and de facto property disputes, particularly at appellate level. Through her family law practice, Chief Justice Bryant also dealt with bankruptcy, humanrights and equal opportunity matters. She was appointed a Queen's Counsel in 1997. From 1977 to 1990, Chief Justice Bryant was a partner with law firm Phillips Fox in Perth where she practised as a solicitor and counsel specialising in family law. She was a Director of Australian Airlines from 1984 to 1989. Chief Justice Bryant was admitted as a legal practitioner in Victoria in 1970 and holds a Bachelor of Laws and Master of Laws from Monash University.

Professor John McMillan
Ombudsman, Commonwealth of Australia
Professor John McMillan was appointed the Commonwealth Ombudsman in 2003, handling complaints against the Australian Government. Prior to this he was Alumni Professor of administrative law at the Australian National University. Professor McMillan has had a varied career in law, government and community affairs. He has taught law at the University of New South Wales, the Australian Graduate School of Management and at Australian National University. He held a number of public sector posts including Associate to Justice Mason of the High Court of Australia, PrincipalInvestigation Officer in the Commonwealth Ombudsman’s Office and consultant to many parliamentary and government inquiries. He has practised in Canberra as a solicitor and as a legal consultant to the Government Services Group of Clayton Utz. Professor McMillan has been an active member of many non-government organisations in areas such as administrative law, public administration, consumer advocacy and residentaction. He was a founding member of the Freedom of Information Campaign Committee, which led the public campaign for enactment of the Freedom of Information Act 1982. He is an executive member and former President of the Australian Institute of Administrative Law and a member of the Administrative Review Council, which advises the Attorney-General on administrative law reform.

Walter Merricks
Chief Ombudsman, Financial Services Ombudsman, England
Walter Merricks is the United Kingdom’s Financial Ombudsman, heading an organisation of 950 staff that deals with consumer complaints about financial firms. He has a legal background, having qualified as a solicitor, worked as a legal academic and as assistant secretary-general of the Law Society of England and Wales.

Dr Grant Lester
Forensicare Victoria
Dr Grant Lester has a Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery and a Master of Medicine and is a Fellow of the Royal Australian College of Psychiatrists. He has extensive clinical practice experience as a consultant psychiatrist for the acute psychiatric admission unit of Thomas Embling, Victoria’s high security forensic psychiatric hospital. He is also Director of the Victorian Advanced Training Program in Forensic Psychiatry. Dr Lester's thesis for his masters degree in Medicine (Forensic Psychiatry) was on the topic of Querulous Paranoia and the Vexatious Litigant. For several years, Dr Lester has been treating and researching a group of violent persistent complainants/litigants and has also conducted research into this group with Victoria’s Ombudsman Office and complaints organisations. Dr Lester is regularly invited to provide presentations and training workshops for various governmental departments, complaints organisations and the National Judicial College of Australia on the management of the unusually persistent complainant and the unusually persistent complainant as an unrepresented litigant.

Professor Mike Taggart
Alexander Turner Professor of Law, Auckland University
Professor Mike Taggart is Alexander Turner Professor of Law at the University of Auckland and has published widely in administrative law and legal history. His major publications include Private Property and Abuse of Rights in Victorian England (2002) and The Province of Administrative Law (1997) and he is co-editor of the Public Law Review. Professor Taggart has taught at Auckland University’s Faculty of Law since 1982 and was Dean of Law from 1992 to 1995. He was awarded a University of Auckland Teaching Medal in 2002. Professor Taggart obtained his Bachelor of Laws (Hons) from the University of Auckland and a Master of Laws from Harvard Law School. He has held visiting positions at the universities of Cambridge, Toronto, Melbourne, Saskatchewan and Queen’s University.

Professor Steve Hedley
School of Law, University College Cork
Recently appointed as Professor of Law at University College Cork, Professor Hedley’s areas of expertise are contracts and e-commerce. He joined the University College Cork Faculty of Law in 2003 after 18 years at Cambridge University. Well published, Professor Hedley has written textbooks on torts and restitution, among others, and runs a website on restitutionary issues.

Jürgen Dehn
Former High Court presiding judge, Celle and former Prosecutor-General, Germany
Jürgen Dehn studied law at Hamburg and Göttingen and after completing practical training in 1972 was appointed to the state legal service of Lower Saxony in Germany. He became a public prosecutor in 1975 and went on to work for the German Federal Director of Public Prosecutions. In 1982 he was appointed a judge and until 1990 waspresident of a criminal court attached to the District Court, specialising in economic and competition law. From 1990 to 1997, Dehn was president of the Criminal Senate of a State Supreme Court dealing with criminal appeals and crimes against the state. He then returned to prosecuting and was, until his retirement from the public service in 2004, Prosecutor- General in Brunswick. He has since been employed as an expert advisoron European Union development projects in Russia and Serbia, among other countries. Dehn is the co-author of a commentary on legal aid, now in its eighth edition.