Richard Searby

Richard Searby

Dr. Richard Henry Searby AO QC (b. 1931) is an Australian lawyer, company director and academic.

His father was Dr. Henry Searby, a founding member of the Royal Melbourne Hospital at Parkville and his mother, Mary Searby, was a philanthropist involved in community programs for the benefit of underprivileged people. He was born on 23 July 1931. His brother, Michael, held a doctorate in philosophy from Cambridge University and had a career as a director of companies.

He was educated first at home by his grandfather (a former headmaster of first, Essendon High School and subsequently Melbourne High School), and then at the Geelong Grammar School, where he was a school prefect. He attended Melbourne University for one year before leaving to study classics (Ancient Greek and Roman History and Philosophy and Ancient Greek and Latin) at Oxford University. He was awarded a BA Lit Hum (Hons) and an MA from Oxford University in 1954 (as well as a sports blue for tennis) and was then admitted to the Inner Temple. On his return to Australia, from 1956 until 1959, he was Associate to Sir Owen Dixon, Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia. He commenced practice at the Victorian Bar in 1959 and was appointed as a Queen’s Counsel in 1971.

His practice was in equity, commercial and company law, constitutional law, taxation, intellectual property, banking, media law, maritime law and trade practices law. He advised the Australian Government on various occasions and he appeared in constitutional cases for both the Australian and the Victorian governments as well as clients in the private sector. He also drafted amendments to Australian and Victorian legislation, including the Federal Conciliation and Arbitration Act and Victorian adoption legislation. His final court case was an in camera appearance with respect to the application of the Victorian Adoption law to IVF.

In 1981 he and former Commissioner JE Taylor prepared a report for the Australian Government into the workings of the Conciliation and Arbitration Act.

From 1977 to 1992 he was chairman of Rupert Murdoch's News empire of media companies, including News Limited, News International and News Corporation. During that period he was involved in the purchase of "The Times" newspaper, the Hitler Diaries saga and the relocation of London-based newspaper infrastructure from Gray's Inn Road and Fleet Street to Wapping, which resulted in a year-long union protest. Rupert Murdoch was a childhood friend of Richard Searby's with whom he shared a study at the Geelong Grammar School and attended Oxford University.

From 1961 until 1972 he was Independent Lecturer in Law relating to Executors and Trustees and a member of the Faculty of Law at the University of Melbourne where he lectured Mr. Barry Jones AO, former Federal Labor Party politician and television quiz show "Pick a Box" champion.

In 2005, he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Laws from Deakin University where he was Chancellor from 1997. He was awarded an Order of Australia in 2006 for his services to education, as a contributor to the programs of major cultural institutions, business and the law, the first of which formed a symbiosis with the vocation of his grandfather.

Richard Searby is married to Caroline McAdam with whom he has three sons, Charles, Patrick and James.