Residency Programs

Judge in Residence

The Judge in Residence program offers a unique opportunity for the bench to impact, shape and influence the academic life of the Faculty of Business, Law and Arts. It also enables staff and students to learn from, and be advised by, influential leading jurists from Australia and internationally. Judges in residence may:

  • Conduct research
  • Offer lectures, master classes or seminars
  • Engage with faculty and students
  • Assist at moot courts or provide expertise to postgraduates
  • Interact with the community-at-large.

The program seeks to foster an ongoing exchange between the bench and the academy, thus informing and enhancing the Faculty’s pedagogy, scholarship and profile as a school that takes the ‘law in action’ as seriously as the ‘law in books’.

2019 and 2020: The Honourable Justice François Kunc 

The School of Law and Justice's third Judge in Residence was The Honourable Justice Francois Kunc, a member of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, Equity Division. He is past President of the Law and Literature Association of Australia, the General Editor of The Australian Law Journal and a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Equity. An accomplished musician, a papal knight and a true Renaissance man, The Honourable Justice Kunc is Deputy Chair of the SLJ’s Law Advisory Committee.

2018: The Honourable Nicholas Hasluck AM QC 

Retired Western Australian Supreme Court Judge and well-known novelist, The Honourable Nicholas Hasluck spoke on the intimate nexus in his work and elsewhere between law, literature and the arts.

2017 and 2018: The Honourable Margaret McMurdo AC

The inaugural Judge in Residence for the School of Law and Justice was The Honourable Margaret McMurdo AC. Long a feminist trailblazer, she was the first woman to be appointed a judge of a Queensland District Court of Queensland, and the first woman appointed as a presiding judge of an Australian appellate court. She is also founding president of the Women Lawyers Association of Queensland, as well as a founding fellow of the Australian Academy of Law. Made a Companion of the Order of Australia for service to the law and judicial administration in Queensland, The Honourable Margaret McMurdo is, at present, Chair of the Legal Aid Board of Queensland and Chair of SLJ’s Law Advisory Committee.

 

Law and Humanities Artist in Residence

This program stimulates research and provides possibilities for collaboration in areas including, but not limited to:

  • Law and literature
  • Law and popular culture
  • Cultural legal studies
  • Critical jurisprudence
  • Human rights
  • New legal history
  • Legal anthropology
  • Performance studies
  • Climate justice, social justice and environmental activism.

The program highlights and complements the School's strong connection to the humanities, its commitment to social and climate justice, and its unique research and community engagement in the area of social, political and legal activism.

November 2019: Reading The Reader – in conversation with Professor Bernhard Schlink (Lismore Regional Gallery)

Distinguished international novelist, German judge and US-based legal academic, Professor Bernhard Schlink, read from and spoke to his international best-seller, The Reader, which became an Oscar-winning film starring Kate Winslet and Ralph Fiennes.

May, August 2019: Mr John Reid, Emeritus Fellow, ANU (Gold Coast campus)

Artist John Reid worked on his infamous and law-breaking cut-up collage of Australian banknotes, the central image and overarching message of which are grounded in Amnesty International's 1982 Disappearance Campaign – triggered by the criminal political climate in Central and South America – and by the artist’s concern about Australia's relationship with Indonesia and policy on East Timor.

August 2019: Ms Fleur Kilpatrick (Gold Coast campus and online)

Award-winning playwright and director Fleur Kilpatrick examined Australia’s relationship with nature and our shared global responsibility to achieve environmental sustainability through the dramatic lens of her 2017 Max Afford Award-winning play, Whale, and its comedic tactics and absurdist structures. See the video.

May 2018: Mr Daryl Dellora (Lismore campus)

Award-winning documentary writer and director Daryl Dellora hosted screenings of two of his documentaries: Michael Kirby: Don't Forget the Justice Bit, and Mr Neal is Entitled to be an Agitator - the former about retired High Court justice and human rights advocate, The Honourable Michael Kirby; and the latter, about politician and judge, The Honourable Lionel Murphy.