Maurice Phipps QC

Maurice Phipps commenced his Monash University journey in 1965,  just two years after the Law School was founded. His career boasts many outstanding highlights, including being appointed Queen’s Counsel in 1990, and appointed as one of the first Judges to the Federal Circuit Court in 2000. After 16 years, Maurice retired from the Federal Circuit Court in 2016, where he sat in the family law jurisdiction. Now, Maurice is a nationally accredited mediator and accredited family dispute resolution practitioner. His Monash journey has continued, and he is now an adjunct Professor at the University, assisting in the Family Law Assistance Program (FLAP). Since his retirement as Judge, Maurice is enjoying spending family time with his wife, children and grandchildren.

What degree did you study at Monash?
Then, they had this twin degree, so you got a Bachelor of Jurisprudence after three years, and then you added onto that and got a Bachelor of Laws after five years. The idea behind it was I think so they had law students do something other than law subjects – do a few subjects from other disciplines.

When you were at University, what did you hope your career path would be? 
I was always thinking of being a barrister. I even thought about it at school, because I spent a bit of time at a solicitor’s office after the end of year 12, a solicitor that was connected to my father. So I always had the idea of being a barrister.
 
Would you say that you discovered your passion when you spent the time in the solicitor’s office?
That got me interested, yes, but I don’t know that I’d call it a passion. More of it was looking for a job, but it did interest me, because it was a mixed practice. Those were the days where there were a lot of personal injury cases; before no-fault motor accident cases, before the  transport accident commission. There were a lot more industrial cases as well, people who had been injured in industrial accidents. So even in those two or three weeks, I saw a fair bit of what happened in those sort of cases.

 

After University, what did your career path look like, from Graduation and onwards?

I did articles straight away, and those days, you did 12 months’ articles. It wasn’t College of Law or the other ways to do it. It involved doing I believe four subjects that we did at Summer School, and then did articles for 12 months, so I worked in a solicitor’s office. I think what’s now called a traineeship, was then called articles of clerkship. I did it in the same firm where I spent the two or three weeks as an 18 years old. It was in Melbourne in little Bourke street. A small firm, it only had two solicitors in it, it was called TW Brennan & Co, it’s not there anymore. It had one businessman client who liked litigating – he always seemed to be in trouble over one thing or another so there was some commercial litigation and corporate law going on.

 

This was in the early 1970s, a long time ago, and so once I was admitted to practice after the 12 months of articles, I stayed with that firm until the end of that year. And then I went straight to the Bar, which is what people tended to do, you went to the Bar very early. The Bar was much smaller then, and there was a lot of work for young Barristers in the Magistrates’ Court. There were a lot of small police cases, speeding cases, because they went through the court, there wasn’t the on-the-spot fines. So lots of work, and you didn’t really need contacts, because a lot of things came through the Barristers Clerks.

 

What has been the most satisfying and exciting aspect of your role?

I think it was hearing cases once I was appointed to the Federal Magistrate’s Court, that’s probably the most satisfying part of the career.

 

What do you enjoy about Monash, having both studied there and now lectured students and assisted with the FLAP?

[It was] really quite exciting to be there at the start, because the law school was new and it had attracted a lot of very good staff, because I think it was only the 2nd of the new Universities in Australia after the establishment of all the capital city based [Universities].  This was a brand new law school, when there had only been one in Melbourne, being Melbourne University. So it was quite interesting and exciting. For instance I did one subject which was an elective, the first year it was done, and there were three students and two lecturers. So it just ran on the basis of what was essentially three one-hour discussions each week. So we had pretty small classes, lots of staff, the whole University was much smaller too. I think it was about 5,000 for the whole.

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Do you have any tips for current Monash law students to pursue their dream career?
Don’t assume your dream career is the one that you’re thinking it is now. Just take the
opportunities as they come.
I had a practice in building and construction cases when I was a barrister and that just, I
wouldn’t say it happened by accident, but it wasn’t something that I was aiming to do. It just
came about because I got some briefs. So take the opportunities and even if it
looks like something that you don’t really want to do, get started and see what happens.