Published in association with the Australian Academy of Law, this collection draws on the career of one of Australia’s leading jurists, the Honourable James Allsop AC.
As the editors, Ruth Higgins SC and Kevin Connor SC, state in their introduction: “A pervasive concern of the Honourable James Allsop AC, in both his judicial and extra-judicial writings, has been the pursuit of the often ineffable, but always necessary, human element in the law.”
The book is divided into six parts and contains 18 papers, speeches and chapters which cover the nature of law and public power, the profession and judiciary, and substantive aspects of equity, statute, commercial, and maritime law. The result is a book that reveals the continuities and evolution of Allsop’s thinking, and his significant contribution to public life.
Foreword by the Hon. Chief Justice Stephen Gageler AC
Introduction: From Analysis to Synthesis: RCA Higgins SC & K Connor SC
Part I: The Humanity of Law
1. The law as an expression of the whole personality
2. Values in Law
3. Rules and Values, in law and neuroscience
Part II: Thinking About Law
4. The Importance of how we attend and of context
5. Uncertainty as a part of certainty
6. The Rule of Law is not a law of rules
7. Being a judge
Part III: Reflections on Public Power
8. Values in Public Law
9. The law governing use of public power
Part IV: The Profession
10. The culture of the legal profession: lessons of the past and hope for the future
11. The independent Bar
12. Machines becoming humans, or humans becoming machines?
Part V: Commercial Law
13. Statutes and equity
14. Some reflections on good faith in contract law
15. The intersection of companies and trusts
16. Piercing the corporate veil
Part VI: Maritime and Insurance
17. Australian admiralty and maritime law
18. The central role of insurance in modern society and in the development of the law: The Hon James Allsop AC and Louise Dargan
Index
