Search
This area does not yet contain any content.
Justinian News

Balkan intrigues ... Old coppers stagger into the Croatian Six inquiry ... 15-year jail terms in 1980 for alleged terrorism ... Miscarriage of justice under review ... Verballing ... Loading-up ... Old fashioned detective "work" ... Evidence so far ... Hamish McDonald reports ... Read more >> 

Politics Media Law Society


Splitting heirs ... How to get rid of the Royals – a Republican tours Orstraya … Underneath their robes – sexual harassment on the bench … Credit card fees – so tricky that only economists know what to do … Muted response to Drumgold vindication … Vale Percy Allan ... Read on ... 

The Financial Times examines criminal trial delays in England & Wales ... About 70,000 cases on waiting lists at Crown Courts ... More >>

Free Newsletter
Justinian Columnists

Blue sky litigation ... Another costly Lehrmann decision ... One more spin on the never-never ... Arguable appeal discovered in the bowels of the Gazette of Law & Journalism ... Odious litigants ... Could Lee J have got it wrong on the meaning of rape? ... Calpurnia reports from the Defamatorium ... Read more >> 

Blow the whistle

 

News snips ...


This area does not yet contain any content.
Justinian's Bloggers

Online incitements ... Riots in English cities fed by online misinformation about refugees ... Policing and prosecution policies ... Fast and furious processing of offenders ... Online Safety Act grapples with new challenges ... Increased policing of speech on tech platforms ... Hugh Vuillier reports from London ... Read more >> 

"Mistakes of law or fact are a professional inevitability for judges, tribunal members and administrative decision makers."  

Paul Brereton, Commissioner of the National Corruption Concealment Commission, downplaying the Inspector's finding of bias and procedural unfairness with his conflicted involvement in the decision making about Robodebt referrals ... Read more flatulence ... 


Justinian Featurettes

Vale Percy Allan AM ... Obit for friend and fellow-traveller ... Prolific writer on economics and politics ... Public finance guru ... Technocrat with humanity and broad interests ... Theatre ... Animals ... Art ... Read more ... 


Justinian's archive

A triumph for Victorian morality ... Ashton v Pratt ... In the sack with Dick Pratt ... Meretricious sexual services renders contract void on public policy grounds ... Justice Paul Brereton applies curious moral standard ... A whiff of hypocrisy ... Doubtful finding ... Artemus Jones reporting ... From Justinian's Archive, January 24, 2012 ... Who knew the NACC commissioner had strong views on the sanctity of marriage ... Read more ... 


 

 

« Viticulture in Van Diemen's Land | Main | Judge unimpressed with impressive looking advocate »
Tuesday
Jun022015

Richard McHugh

Richard McHugh is a Sydney silk from a distiguishged legal and political family. He did his masters at Yale and worked for a time at a Wall Street law shop ... He used to appear regularly in the defamation courts, but has shifted his focus to commercial law, most recently appearing for Ginia Rinehart in the big family trust stoush ... A keen photographer he has turned his attention to writing ... Charlie Anderson's General Theory of Lying, published by Penguin, is his first novel ... Here he is, on Justinian's couch 

McHugh: not enough room for all the regretsDescribe yourself in three words.  

Beyond my control.

What are you currently reading? 

Steve Toltz's "Quicksand" and (since 2012) David Foster Wallace's "Infinite Jest".

What's your favourite film?

Apocalypse Now.

Who has been the most influential person in your life, and why? 

My mother. I live in her shadow. Every day I struggle to get out from under it.

What is your favourite piece of music?

Blur - "Song 2" or Radiohead, "Electioneering".

What is in your refrigerator? 

Cream and full cream milk for making ice cream. Two rolls of Verichrome Pan 120 black and white film, expired in 2002.

What is your favourite website?

The Analogue Photography Users Group.

If you could change your past, what part of it would you change?

You don't have the space to accommodate my regrets.

What is your guiltiest pleasure?

Gossip Girl.

Why did you want to be a lawyer? 

That's the wrong question. I was born to be a lawyer.

What other occupation would you have liked to pursue? 

Member for Wentworth, or starting centre for the Los Angeles Lakers.  It would have been nice to combine them.

If you were on death row, what would be your request for your last meal? 

Chicken schnitzel.

What is Charlie Anderson's General Theory of Lying telling us? 

That the professional class is more entertaining than we are given credit for.

From where did you draw the inspiration for the novel? 

The basic package - a highly-educated ever-so-slightly-narcissistic professional couple devoted to their children - is everywhere I look. 

If you were a foodstuff, what would you be?

Dark chocolate. There's only so much you can take.

What human quality do you most distrust?

Vanity.

What would you change about Australia?

Its location. I would move it 12,000 kilometres closer to Rome.

Whom or what do you consider overrated?

Judicial case management.

What would your epitaph say?

"It might have gone better if he'd tried harder."

What comes into your mind when you shut your eyes and think of the word "law"? 

A tax invoice. 

Readers can order the book at Booktopia and Bookworld.

Reader Comments

There are no comments for this journal entry. To create a new comment, use the form below.
Editor Permission Required
You must have editing permission for this entry in order to post comments.