Revisiting the Australian Law Journal’s founding vision as it approaches its centenary
An unsigned note appeared in one of the first issues of the Australian Law Journal (ALJ) in 1927. It was entitled “An Australian Law Association” [(1927) 1 Australian Law Journal 184 at 185] and was almost certainly the work of the editor, a clever, audacious 22 year-old. Not long out of law school and only a year into his illustrious time at the Bar, the then Bernard Sugerman wrote with great prescience that “[t]he legal profession appears to be one of the few professions or businesses in Australia which are without a Federal Organisation of some kind. No one can doubt that much good work can be accomplished through the agency of such a body”.
Sir Bernard Sugerman as he became, remained editor throughout his twenty-year career at the Bar, serving also at times as the editor in chief of the Australian Digest and as an editor of the Commonwealth Law Reports. He was appointed a judge of the Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration and then as a judge of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, eventually becoming President of the New South Wales Court of Appeal.
In celebration of Volume 100 of the ALJ this year and its upcoming centenary in 2027, the Chief Justice of Australia, the Hon Stephen Gageler AC delivered “The Inaugural Sugerman Lecture: Reclaiming the Founding Vision”, named in honour of the founding editor, in the Banco Court in the Supreme Court in Sydney on 3 September 2026.
In praise of the ALJ, he said: “It remains, as it was described on the occasion of its tenth anniversary, ‘a legitimate source of pride to all members of the legal profession in Australia’.”
To a legal luminary-packed audience including members of the Council of Chief Justices of Australia and NZ, including NSW Chief Justice Bell, and judges from courts across Australia and members of the Sugerman family, and Rabbi Benjamin Elton, the current Chief Minister of the Sydney synagogue where Sir Bernard worshipped, Chief Justice Gageler traced the role of the ALJ in the emergence of an ambitious vision of a truly national and distinctively Australian legal profession.
“The idea I propose to explore is that the founding of the ALJ can be understood as an essential element of a larger moment in the history of the Australian legal profession.”
A national vision takes shape
Founded by the Law Book Company of Australasia Limited only a few years before the establishment of the Law Council of Australia in 1933 and then the first Australian Legal Convention in 1935, the Commonwealth Attorney-General, John Latham, in a foreword to the first issue described the purpose of the ALJ as being “a medium for the distribution of information and the interchange of ideas among legal practitioners in every State of the Commonwealth”.
Fulfilling this mission and as a forum “for the profession to reflect on its work and debate its future”, the ALJ was pivotal in recording this time of calls for change and the work towards realising the vision, which the Chief Justice described as follows:
The thrust of the vision was that practitioners should begin to think of themselves not as divided into six communities connected simply by a common heritage, but as members of a national profession. A sense of shared identity would be valuable because a profession that could think nationally, act nationally and unite around common values would be better equipped to service its clients and fulfil its public responsibilities.
The ALJ recorded the inauguration of the Law Council of Australia – when 20 delegates representing the law societies and bar councils of the States met over three days in Sydney, as “an emulation, within a more confined sphere, of the laudable intentions of the founders of the Commonwealth”.
A special supplement to the ALJ published learned papers delivered at the first Australian Legal Convention, with publication of issues raised at the Australian Legal Conventions held regularly between 1935 and 2009, then revived in 2025, with the next one to be held in 2027.
From debate to development
According to the Chief Justice, “[t]ogether, the ALJ and the Conventions had the effect of inviting all practitioners to think about Australian law as something capable of criticism and development”.
That criticism was directed at practical weaknesses in the profession and legal system: inconsistent admission standards and ethical rules between States, restrictions on lawyers practising across borders, and divergent State laws that created unnecessary complexity. The proposed developments were equally concrete, nationally consistent professional standards, reciprocal admission, closer scrutiny of judgments and legislation, and greater harmonisation of laws where local differences served no useful purpose.
The impact was to recast law reform as part of the profession’s public responsibility. The ALJ gave practitioners a national forum in which to identify problems and test ideas, while the Conventions brought those debates together in person. Lawyers were encouraged not merely to apply the law, but to contribute their experience, research and collective influence to improving it.
A vision still unfinished
The vision produced lasting change. It helped create a profession increasingly able to exchange ideas across jurisdictions, organise around common concerns and see the improvement of the law as a national responsibility. Yet progress was slow and remains incomplete. As the Chief Justice observed, “[t]he vision itself remains in significant respects unfulfilled”.
The National Legal Profession Reform Taskforce appointed by the Commonwealth Attorney-General in 2009 took on the task of developing a national regulatory framework for a national legal profession which resulted in the Legal Profession Uniform Law, starting in New South Wales and Victoria in 2015, and in Western Australia in 2022.
With a way to go, the Uniform Law has brought around three quarters of the Australian profession into its single regulatory fold.
The significance extends beyond regulatory consistency. The Chief Justice’s central argument was that a relatively small national profession is stronger when it works collectively and that the ultimate beneficiaries are the Australian community and its democratic institutions.
“This occasion allows us to reflect on the founding vision and provides us with an opportunity as present custodians of the profession to recommit ourselves to its future realisation.”
In what Justice François Kunc, General Editor of the ALJ has described as a “call to action for us to pick up this baton again”, the Chief Justice closed his lecture with these words: “This occasion allows us to reflect on the founding vision and provides us with an opportunity as present custodians of the profession to recommit ourselves to its future realisation.”
Carrying the vision forward
The inauguration of the Sugerman Lecture series is one the centenary activities designed to carry that vision forward, preserving the Journal’s institutional memory, examining contemporary questions of law and democracy, creating opportunities for emerging legal writers and establishing an enduring national lecture.
A series of “deeply researched and illuminating articles” on the evolution of the ALJ decade by decade in the words of the Chief Justice, is being undertaken by Larissa Reid of the NSW Law Courts Library to be published over the course of this year and next.
In November, this year’s special issue for Volume 100 is “The Law and Democracy”. The guest editor is Professor Rosalind Dixon, and the ALJ is undertaking this project in collaboration with the Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law and the UNSW Resilient Democracy Lab.
Looking to next year, we will be celebrating the centenary of the first issue on 5 May 1927. Inspired by the example set by the young Bernard Sugerman, the ALJ editors intend the centenary issue to be a showcase for the best emerging legal talent.
“To that end, we recently announced the ALJ Centenary Prize. It is open to anyone aged up to 30 in May 2027 to submit an article for consideration to be included in the centenary issue. Up to five articles will be selected and the winners will share in a $10,000 prize pool of cash and kind, generously provided by Thomson Reuters.
“I take this opportunity to thank the three eminent lawyers who have agreed to be the competition judges: Professors Barnett, Croucher and Gummow. For anyone here who might be eligible and interested in the competition, Professor Barnett or I would be pleased to give you the details.”
This could mark the beginning of a marvelous career! Justice Kunc cites the intriguing possibility that an article signed “AM” is likely to have been the work of a young Anthony Mason, contributing to the ALJ when he was “barely out of law school”.
“So that’s really the inspiration. The ALJ has given a lot of people who have gone on to becoming leaders in the law their first start in published legal writing.”
And finally to plans for next year’s Sugerman Lecturer, does Justice Kunc have someone in mind already?
“I certainly do, but who they are is a dark secret,” he laughed. “I think it’s fair to say I am in negotiation with somebody to deliver the second lecture next year, but it’s a little premature to let that cat out of the bag!”
Get your free copy of ALJ Volume 100, Part 2
As part of the Journal’s centenary celebrations, Thomson Reuters is offering a free download of Volume 100, Part 2 of the Australian Law Journal. This issue features the latest instalment of Larissa Reid’s decade-by-decade history of the ALJ, tracing the Journal’s formative years in the 1920s, alongside articles on climate change law and institutional trust in the legal profession, and the latest High Court reports.
Download your free copy via the form on this page.
