Before his appointment to the Equity Division of the Supreme Court of New South Wales on 1 February 2024, James Hmelnitsky SC was that rarest of creatures at the New South Wales Bar: a senior defamation silk who practised mainly outside defamation, in hard, technical, black-letter law.

Hmelnitsky SC practised mainly in tax and commercial law but could turn his hand successfully to anything, including a range of administrative law cases. Within tax, he was at the pinnacle of the profession on the east coast, much sought after in Melbourne as well as in Sydney. His technical mastery of trusts, contract, insolvency and valuation, as well as the whole gamut of Australian taxation law, meant that there was no tax case that was beyond his skill set. He was known for his ability to immerse himself in the detail, for his cross-examination skills, and for his ability to focus in submissions on the key points on which the case would be decided.

It was inevitable from an early stage in his career that James would also practise partly in defamation, as he attained the marker of a senior defamation silk – the nightly appearance on the evening news on the steps of the court – before he even came to the Bar. On the first day of the mammoth Super League litigation in 1995, he was wheeling a trolley to court for a different, entirely unrelated, case. As he turned the corner into the Queens Square wind tunnel, the papers flew from his trolley. With the assembled media pack in hot pursuit, he ran the papers down in the driving rain and stuffed them back onto his trolley before beating an ignominious retreat into the court building. Thereafter, for several months the nightly television news story about the progress of the Super League litigation was accompanied by footage of a young Hmelnitsky J running down the street chasing flying pieces of paper in the rain.

In defamation, Hmelnitsky SC was the counsel of choice for cases with difficult facts, difficult law or a difficult judge. In a landmark case, he succeeded in a defence of truth to allegations of war crimes in Snedden v Nationwide News [2009] NSWSC 1446, which was upheld on appeal: Snedden v Nationwide News Pty Ltd [2011] NSWCA 262. His Honour’s technical knowledge of defamation law is unsurpassed, including among the specialist defamation Bar.

His Honour’s early life was not free of tragedy or difficulty. His father, Russian–Ukrainian by birth and a music teacher, died suddenly when James was one year old, leaving his Irish–Australian mother, who was six months pregnant, with two toddlers to care for alone, which is about as catastrophic a position as any young mother could find herself in. Years later, after his mother remarried, a further three children followed, making a large, blended family.

The family moved from Coogee to Cronulla, where James attended De La Salle College. He then excelled in arts and law at the University of Sydney, during which time he worked as a paralegal, variously at Geoffrey Edwards and Co and elsewhere, and for a young barrister named Geoffrey Watson. During his time at the University of Sydney he met his life partner, Kate O’Rourke. After graduating he worked as an associate to Justice Munro, Senior Deputy President at the Australian Industrial Relations Commission (AIRC), and then at Rosenblum and Partners in litigation under the supervision of Kenneth Raphael, who recognised his talents and set about developing them. They did a wide range of work together, mainly in tax, but also in commercial litigation and administrative law and for a wide range of clients, including Rene Rivkin, for whom they achieved great results before his later less successful outcomes in other litigation.

In 1998 James and Kate moved to New York, where both passed the New York Bar Exam after little over a week of preparation, without outside assistance. James then worked for Shearman and Sterling in commercial transactions and in insolvency for three years.

On returning to Australia, James came to the Bar in 2001, reading on the Sixth Floor, Selborne Wentworth Chambers. His abilities were quickly recognised by a number of silks there, and he was brought into a wide range of major cases in commercial law, tax, defamation and administrative law. He developed a wide practice of his own and took silk in 2013.

An abiding feature of Hmelnitsky SC’s time in practice was his balancing of practice with family life. He has been a devoted partner to Kate, and father to their three children, Anna, Sasha and Niko.

Hmelnitsky J is a true polymath. He is a skilful and accomplished sailor, having learned as a young man racing small keelboats with Jim Curtis, then of the New South Wales Bar. He has sailed the east coast from Jervis Bay to Cairns, as well as in New Caledonia, Vavau in Tonga and the north-western Cyclades in Greece. He can fix anything electrical – at least in 12 V – and has built sophisticated computerised navigation systems from componentry based on a Raspberry Pi. He has built two plywood kayaks, which are works of art, as well as an array of wooden furniture. He speaks a passable German. When the children took up musical instruments, James took up violin to keep them company, at which he excelled. He may have a genetic advantage: his grandparents were accomplished soloists who toured Europe extensively prior to the revolution before being driven east, and his uncle, Igor Hmelnitsky, was a concert pianist of extraordinary ability. Several of his virtuoso performances can still be found on YouTube. Manifesting his musical diversity, James is an aficionado of mariachi bands.

His Honour is also a skilled and creative photographer, across a range of media. His favourite cameras are his old Olympus and an even older Rolleiflex, but he is equally adept at getting creative shots with an iPhone or a GoPro. He had a long romance with the Super 8 video format, a true test of the filmmaker’s storytelling ability, before switching to the short-lived Flip format, from which he managed to extract a series of entertaining films.

As the Attorney-General mentioned at his swearing in, his Honour is an accomplished baker, from all kinds of bread to croissants and brioches to cinnamon scrolls. He is also an excellent cook and master of the hibachi barbeque.

His Honour has a love of the outdoors – pretty much anything outdoors. He and Kate have done many serious bushwalks, within Australia and around the world, including in upstate New York. They are accomplished cross-country skiers, both of the skinny-ski cut-track racing variety and of the back country. James has skied in the Jagungal Wilderness Area in Kosciusko National Park and crossed from Kiandra to Munyang in winter on touring skis, a trip of several days.

The New South Wales Bar and the Sixth Floor have lost a colleague whose company in a case or socially was always a delight, and who was a loyal and caring friend. But the Supreme Court has gained a judge of rare ability, with the legal skills, temperament and eye for detail to deal with the most complex cases and an understanding of the challenges that life can throw up.