As Chief Justice Gageler observes in his thoughtful Foreword to this collection, “… Gummow is, and has been for some 60 years, a formidable influence on the content and trajectory of Australian law”. The 30 papers that comprise this volume are organised into four parts: Personalities; Legal Method; Constitutional Law; and Private Law. Together they highlight the breadth and depth of the author’s legal mind. Each reflects a rich understanding of legal history and mastery of the method by which the common law develops and is understood. Among the writings that have been selected we find, according to Chief Justice Gageler, “… penetrating insights into prominent legal personalities and landmark cases; sophisticated and sustained expositions of legal method and legal doctrine; innovative and profound explorations of fundamental legal concepts; and intense and often searing criticisms of specific contemporary legal developments”. This is a book which will be read. And read again.

Sadly the Honourable William Gummow AC passed away on 16 September 2026.

“Vale Bill Gummow, law’s Renaissance man” by Dr Michael Douglas, Brief, 18 September 2026

“Professor Gummow changed how I thought about the law and how I thought about what a life in the law could be. He did that, in part, by his own example.

In the recent Federation Press collection, Method, History and Doctrine: Selected Papers of William Gummow, editor Aryan Mohseni observed that ‘[w]hen Gummow put pen to paper – and it was so often pen and paper – he wrote “not from the single perspective of solicitor, barrister, or teacher, but as one who has been all of these”’. He did it all at an exceptional standard.” To read the full article visit

https://briefonline.com.au/2026/09/18/vale-bill-gummow-laws-renaissance-man/

“Vale the Honourable William Gummow AC 1942 – 2026” by the Honourable Justice Mark Leeming, 17 September 2026

“He was a man of courage and intellectual integrity who left an immense legacy, not only in his jurisprudence and writings, but in the legal minds he shaped and sharpened through decades of teaching.” To read the full article visit

https://inbrief.nswbar.asn.au/posts/b1d8ece4fac042e88d98752e3f0f2996/attachment/Vale.pdf