Tribute to the late Richard Cooper

• Author: The Hon. Justice James L Allsop
• Position: Federal Court of Australia
• Pages: 1-3

TRIBUTE TO THE LATE RICHARD COOPER

Addre ss To The 32nd Annual MLAANZ Confe rence

6 October 2005

Justic e Jam e s Allsop

Fe de ra l Co urt o f A ustralia

It is a great honour to be asked to speak about our late colleague and friend Richard Cooper, who so

tragically died on 14 March 2005.

I wish to say something to those of you who may not have known him well and to those of you who

did.

Richard was a Sydney boy – born on 3 January 1947 and educated at Sydney Boys High. He moved to

Queensland, studied law at the University of Queensland and excelled – both at undergraduate level

(graduating in 1969 after winning a number of prizes) and at post graduate level (graduating with a

Master of Laws in 1979). After practising at the bar for 4 years after 1969 he joined the

Commonwealth Attorney-General’s Department and there began to involve himself in two of his great

interests – international transport and trade law and trade practices law. (His position in recent years as

a Deputy President of the Australian Competition Tribunal reflected his continuing interest and

involvement in the second of these important areas.) He was involved in policy development in the

early stages of that most important piece of commercial legislation in Australia, the Trade Practices

Act 1974 (Cth). This led to his attendance at and participation in international conferences on liner

shipping where his interests in maritime law continued.

He returned to the Bar in Queensland, but only after reading in Admiralty chambers in London with Mr

Christopher Staughton QC.

In 1976 Richard gave a paper on Combined Transport to the first major MLAANZ Conference.

His maritime practice flourished. He took silk. He became a consultant to one of the great exercises of

law reform in Australian history – the civil Admiralty reference. While practising, he taught maritime

law as a visiting lecturer at the University of Queensland. He was a member of the Governing Council

of King’s College at that University.

In the 1980s he appeared as a junior and then as a silk in many maritime cases. Amongst those were

many marine insurance cases – not infrequently involving scuttling. His success is said to have had a

significant effect on the fishing vessel insurance market in Queensland. Scuttling of fishing vessels in

Queensland, I am told, has been significantly less prevalent since he got to work in the 1980s with

Frank Turner, Stuart Hetherington, Pat Keane (if I may so refer to his Honour) and others for the

underwriters.

In 1982, he visited Beijing and Shanghai as part of the Law Council of Australia’s teaching delegation

on shipping and international trade law.

He had a long-standing commitment to the Queensland Bar in its training courses for young barristers.

He served on the Queensland Law Reform Commission, from 1999 as Deputy Chairman and in 1992

and 1993 as Chairman. He wrote academic papers and contributed to text books and participated in

many seminars (I should note that in 2000 he began the process of Admiralty rule reform in Australia

by virtue of the scholarly paper on comparative Admiralty practice that he delivered at the Queenstown

MLAANZ conference).

In 1989, at the young age of 42, he devoted himself to public service full-time – joining the Supreme

Court of Queensland. He later came to the Federal Court bench in 1992.

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