Oral histories profile: Christopher

Barrister shapes history of profession

LINDY MCNAMARA

Closely related to the Barr Smith and Elders families, Christopher Legoe AO QC has a strong connection to the early history of South Australia. He also helped shape the history of the legal profession in the State when he took the bold step to become the first person to officially practise only as a barrister.

It was the early 1950s when Mr Legoe returned from England after completing law studies at the University of Cambridge. He was admitted to the English Bar in 1951 and after arriving back in South Australia took up a job as an Associate to Sir Geoffrey Reed, one of the senior Judges on the Supreme Court.

“He (Reed) had gone out on his own in the 1930s and did only court work, and he was in effect really the first one to practise as a barrister only in South Australia. But it’s never been recognised,” Mr Legoe explained during an interview as part of the Law Foundation’s Oral History project.

“That year Sir Geoffrey Reed and I went on circuit, I got on very well with him and he encouraged me to think about doing court work. He didn’t specifically say, ‘Go out on your own’, because nobody ever thought of it in those days.”

However, after much consideration, discussion and consultation with family members, in 1955 Mr Legoe wrote a letter to the Law Society President Frank Piper QC indicating he wanted to set up practise solely as a barrister.

“My first brief was an all-day sucker! I had a little room. Bob Fisher’s father was a friend of my father, and Bob said, ‘Look, we’ve got a room on the third floor of Epworth Building that we can rent to you’.

“I didn’t have many law books or anything, but I started there, and Bob used to send me a few small briefs up to the Stirling Court – he lived in the Hills, and he’d get a few small things.

“And, then the Bednalls – Maurice Bednall, who’s the father, and David Bednall, the son – they were on the

Chris Legoe

second floor I think of Epworth, and they started briefing me. And, then a few other small solicitors started briefing afterwards.”

Mr Legoe’s move was the hot topic of conversation in legal circles, so much so that in 1959 then Law Society President, David Hogarth, called a meeting to allow Members to debate the merits of a divided profession.

“I was still the only one who was practising only as a barrister. David called a meeting of the Law Society, a general meeting for discussion as to whether the profession should divide, separately, like in New South Wales and Queensland, by Act of Parliament.

“Victoria has never had an Act of Parliament separating it professionally, they did it voluntarily way back in the 1880s,

‘90s or something – I don’t remember, whenever it was.

“Anyway, there was a lot of discussion and people like the late Bob Irwin, who was a very senior solicitor – he didn’t go to court – was dead against it, spoke vehemently of the stupidity of this, and how it was quite wrong for South Australia.

“Even Len King, who was my Chief Justice – I got very friendly with Len when I was at the Court of course. Len was in Wallman and Partners in those days, and he did all their court work, but he was only a junior. Len was a few years older than myself, not much, I suppose he was five years older. But he told me when I was at the Court, he said, ‘You know Chris, I voted against dividing the profession, because I thought it could never become a reality’. And, he said, ‘You know, you were right, and you were the one who did it’.

“Len was very generous about it, and when I retired, he made very generous remarks about me. But, anyway, that’s just an example of the sort of discussion. Then there was a couple of others. I remember the late Frank Potter, who was a senior solicitor, spoke graciously in saying, ‘Well look, we have now reached the stage Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria all have separate bars’. He didn’t put in those words, but that’s in effect what he said.”

“Howard Zelling, of course, voted in favour, and he later joined us, and Jack Elliott, who was a busy criminal lawyer, he was the first one to join me, seven years after I had elected. And, as I said, those seven years I was longer in the wilderness than John the Baptist, which was my motto.”

In 1962 Jack Elliott then Robin Millhouse and Howard Zelling joined the Bar and in 1964 the South Australian Bar Association was formed.

The work kept coming in for Mr Legoe, and one major case was the Stuart Royal Commission.

“I was junior counsel to Jim Brazel. That was certainly a big step for me, and I must say I learnt a lot from that. There’s books been written about it, and it still goes on, the controversy about the Stuart case.”

In 1972 Mr Legoe was appointed a Queen’s Counsel and six years later he took a seat on the Supreme Court bench.

“I was arguing a case before the Full Court. David Hogarth was the acting Chief Justice. John Bray, the Chief Justice was away in Greece on sick leave, and I can’t remember who the other two members of the bench were, but during an adjournment, a lunch adjournment or something, David Hogarth called me into chambers, and I thought, oh dear me, have I done something wrong with the argument or something? And, he said, ‘The Attorney General wants to speak to you, will you go down and see him?”

“Now, the Attorney General at the time was – he was a young man, and it was the Don Dunstan Government at the time. I went down to see him, and he said, ‘We want to appoint you to the Supreme Court’. And, I said, ‘Why on earth would you want to do that?”

“I was very happy, getting lots of work, and had two young daughters at that stage. He said, ‘Oh, we regard you as a small L liberal’. And I said, ‘What does that mean?’ Because I’d never taken any part in politics, I’d never joined a political party, I’d always kept right away from politics and still do, although we get it forced upon us of course.”

Accepting the appointment, one of the first cases he heard was about an injunction to stop somebody keeping bees next door to their house at Gawler.

“I had been an amateur beekeeper for many years, that’s one of my great interests,” Mr Legoe said.

“Ever since I was at school, I’d been interested in apis mellifera mellifera – more particularly in the Kangaroo Island breed, apis mellifera ligustica, the Ligurian bee – and I said to the barristers when it came on, ‘Look, I’m a beekeeper, I perhaps shouldn’t be hearing this.”

“And, the one who was for the plaintiff asking for the injunction said, ‘Oh, it’s good to have somebody who knows something about bees. No, we don’t object.”

“So, I went ahead and I wrote a long judgment on it, it’s been reported… Stormer was the name of the plaintiff. I’m afraid I gave judgment for the beekeeper. I refused the injunction.”

Throughout his career as a barrister, Mr Legoe said he always thought it was important to be a Member of the Law Society. In 1969 he was elected to the Society’s Council and later Executive, and also served as Chair of the Property Committee.

“In South Australia, you are admitted as a barrister, solicitor, proctor and attorney at law. The disciplinary committee of the legal profession in South Australia is the Law Society, so they have discipline over everyone. The Bar admittedly now is an incorporated body, but it’s an incorporated body, in my view, within the Law Society.”

“I always took the view, after I left to practise as a barrister, that we are working together. We’re practising as barristers, but we were receiving our work from solicitors. We’ve got to help them, they help us.”

“We’re all in the same profession, we were all trying to achieve the same thing, which if you like to put it in one word, it’s justice or fairness, or whatever. And, I think it’d be a pity if either the bar or the solicitors or the Law Society rather, regarded one another as being separate.”

“I’ve quite strong feelings on that as a professional. I think it’s unprofessional if we don’t work and give each other help and assistance and advice as to how we go about our practice.”

To read more about Mr Legoe’s outstanding career as a barrister and judge, his love for South Australian history, art, and his fight to save Carrick

Hill, go to www.lawsocietysa.asn.au. B July 2021 THE BULLETIN 35