Swearing in of his Honour Justice Tim Faulkner to the Supreme Court of New South Wales
On 2 May 2024, it was announced that Tim Faulkner SC had been appointed a judge of the Supreme Court of New South Wales.
On 23 May 2024, the court held a formal ceremony in the Banco Court to mark his Honour’s appointment. The ceremony was presided over by the chief justice and was attended by his Honour’s new colleagues on the Supreme Court Bench, a large number of judges of other courts (including Justices Jagot and Beech-Jones of the High Court of Australia) and former judges (including the Honourable Tom Bathurst KC). Also present were many members of the New South Wales Bar and solicitors.
Importantly, the ceremony was also attended by Justice Faulkner’s wife, Liz, and their children, Harrison, Lachlan and Catherine.
The court was addressed by the Honourable Michael Daley MP, Attorney-General of New South Wales; Ms Cassandra Banks, the immediate past president of the Law Society of New South Wales; and, of course, Justice Faulkner.
His Honour was born in 1966 at the Royal Canberra Hospital, and he grew up in and around Canberra. His father, Donald, was an astrophysicist and his mother, June, ran the household. His Honour attended Aranda Primary School and then Canberra High School, moving to Walker College for the last two years of his secondary education. One of Justice Faulkner’s defining attributes – understatement – underscored an observation that his Honour ‘did alright’ at school; he took pleasure at learning and doing things well.
From an early age his Honour’s keen interest in words and language was noticed by those around him. One example observed in the Attorney’s speech was an occasion when Justice Faulkner was around eight years of age and his mother told him sternly, ‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you’ only to see her son continuing to do the task. When asked by his mother whether he had heard her, his Honour’s polite reply was, ‘Yes. You said if I were you, I wouldn’t do it.’
This was an early display of another of his Honour’s defining attributes: a sense of humour, correctly described by one of his colleagues as ‘desiccated’.
After graduating high school with distinction, Justice Faulkner enrolled in the Australian National University to study economics, in keeping with his Honour’s gifted mathematical ability. He moved to do something alongside economics by also studying law, and from there, his Honour’s interest in law grew quickly. After graduating from university, Justice Faulkner took the first critical step in his journey to the Bench by accepting an offer of a summer clerkship with Mallesons Stephen Jaques. After that summer at Mallesons, his Honour was the associate to Justice Foster in the Federal Court of Australia. While in that role, he undertook a Master of Laws at the University of Sydney.
His Honour then arrived as a graduate solicitor at Mallesons. After what he described as a confused year in the transactions department, Justice Faulkner moved to the 56th floor of the AMP building and his newly allocated office. There, his Honour found on one side of his office a then partner of the firm, now Justice Ashley Black, and on the other side a then partner, now the president of the Court of Appeal, Justice Julie Ward. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Justice Faulkner described his period at Mallesons assisting Justices Ward and Black as ‘the period of my career where I did the most learning’. His Honour observed that one of the things he took from Justice Ward was the supreme governing principle by which all legal practice is to be conducted: without exception, everything has to be 100 per cent correct, all of the time.
His Honour subsequently worked in London for two years and then returned to practice in Sydney. By that time, he had discovered that, in his words, there were only two ways out of a large law firm: dig a tunnel or go to the Bar. Happily for all on 12 Wentworth Chambers and the Bar more generally, in 1999 his Honour was offered a place as a reader on 12 Wentworth Chambers, which he accepted.
In his Honour’s career at the Bar, he developed a practice in commercial law, competition and consumer law, equity, insurance and reinsurance, professional negligence, property, consumer protection, corporations law and appeals. He was briefed in, and conducted, some of the most difficult commercial cases involving the duties owed by legal professionals that have come before the courts in this country. Cases of the most significant factual and legal complexity, conducted for discerning clients, were his Honour’s bread and butter at the Bar.
Justice Faulkner took silk in 2014. One colleague described his Honour’s response to taking silk as like a duck taking to water.
His Honour’s practice certainly was not confined to doing large-scale professional negligence cases involving legal practitioners. For example, in 2020 he acted for ASIC in securing one of the largest civil penalties obtained in this country to date. His Honour also acted in many complex insurance and reinsurance cases.
Justice Faulkner is rightly well known for the efficient use of language, to the point of being described by one colleague as having a pathological hatred of surplusage. It was observed that his Honour makes each word and sometimes each single letter count, noting his communications often come in the form of one letter responses.
At the time of his appointment, Justice Faulkner was the chair of the 12th Floor. All those who had the good fortune to observe the way in which his Honour conducted himself in that role could see that he demonstrated true leadership, adopting a consultative and measured approach and displaying thoughtfulness, decisiveness and kindness. He will be sorely missed both as chair of the floor and as a kind, funny, warm and generous floor member.
In his Honour’s remarks, he acknowledged many of the silks who led him in his career at the Bar before he took silk, including the Honourable Steven Rares, the Honourable Michael Pembroke, Justice Robertson Wright, Justice John Robson and Justice Ian Jackman. His Honour acknowledged his tutors, Justice Jackman and Michael Lowenstein. He also acknowledged the juniors who had assisted him in his cases (including those for whom he had performed babysitting in chambers when their child care arrangements failed) and also remarked on the importance of the solicitors who had briefed him loyally over his 25 years at the Bar. His Honour observed that he considered that behind every great barrister is a great senior associate, usually ‘just one row back’.
Importantly, his Honour also publicly acknowledged the contributions of his opponents in cases. He observed that in recent years he had started to use the expression ‘working with’ rather than against his opponents, because of his realisation that the process of conducting trials involves the barristers and the judge working in a common endeavour to have the real issues in the case resolved. His Honour spoke of the confederacy of Bench and Bar and said that he had experienced that in many of his cases. He thanked each of his opponents for the courteous and constructive way that they had worked together and had taken their respective defeats (and occasional victories).
His Honour gave deep thanks for his family life. Although he was engaged in a large practice conducting high-value complex litigation, Justice Faulkner has ultimately had family at the centre of his life. He has been married to Liz since 1993 and publicly acknowledged the depth of their commitment and the immense joy, pride and gratitude that they have both had from their three children and their partners.
His Honour’s remarks concluded with reference to the statement by the president of the Bar Association that ‘a legal system operating subject to the rule of law is a substantial human achievement’ and noting his privilege to participate in the work of the court.
On a personal note, Justice Faulkner’s appointment is tinged with a sense of loss for the 12th Floor. However, his Honour’s attributes are such that this appointment is without doubt a great benefit for the community. Those attributes that made his Honour a great barrister also make him perfectly suited to the Bench. He is exceptionally bright – indeed, one of the brightest at the Bar; he has meticulous attention to detail and is considered and thoughtful, yet decisive, polite, humble, hard-working and efficient. On a practical level, his Honour loves writing and writes with great skill, economy and efficiency. Above all, his Honour has an overriding sense of what he referred to as the value at the core of his upbringing: a strong sense of the importance of doing right. The litigants and practitioners in New South Wales are very fortunate to have him appointed as a judge of the Supreme Court.
