This volume of speeches by Murray Gleeson AC, QC, who served as Chief Justice of New South Wales, then of Australia, for two decades, is, as James Spigelman has put it in his foreword, “a testament to judicial leadership”. While his judgments are his most enduring and primary contribution to the law, in hundreds of occasional speeches he explained the role and importance of the rule of law, and of the institutions through which it is maintained. These speeches are part of the legacy that Murray Gleeson has bequeathed to his successors in the law and to the Australian community.