Career
Spigelman was admitted to practise as a solicitor in 1972. From 1972 to 1975, he served as Senior Advisor and Principal Private Secretary to the Prime Minister Gough Whitlam. In 1975, he was appointed the Secretary of the Department of the Media.
In 1976 Spigelman was admitted to the NSW Bar. He did not commence practice until three years later; first serving for several years as a member of the Australian Law Reform Commission and also spending time overseas. Spigelman's primary areas of practice at the bar included constitutional law, administrative law and appellate work. In 1986, he was appointed Queen's Counsel. He served as Solicitor-General of NSW in 1997.
The Premier Bob Carr appointed Spigelman Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, and Lieutenant Governor of NSW, effective 19 May 1998.
Spigelman was regarded as the favourite to succeed Murray Gleeson as Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia when he stepped down in late 2008. However, this appointment went instead to Robert French.
On 18 March 2011, Spigelman announced his decision to resign as Chief Justice, effective 31 May 2011. Reviewing Spigelman's 13–year term of office, Sydney Morning Herald columnist, David Marr commented that "... the Chief Justice of NSW .... blazed an incomparable trail.... every stage of Jim Spigelman's remarkable career has been like that: briefly surprising and then absolutely convincing". Marr claims that Spigelman's achievements include the renewal of the ranks of the Supreme Court, running a polite and friendly Court, and modernising the Court's business practices and rules. According to Bret Walker SC, Spigelman was renowned for "... showing his decided preference for efficient, better-value-for-money justice."
He retired on 31 May 2011 and was succeeded by Tom Bathurst QC. Spigelman has also been a justice on the Supreme Court of Fiji.
On 8 March 2012 Prime Minister Gillard announced he would become chairman of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), starting a 5-year term on 1 April 2012.
Read more about this topic: James Spigelman
Famous quotes containing the word career:
“What exacerbates the strain in the working class is the absence of money to pay for services they need, economic insecurity, poor daycare, and lack of dignity and boredom in each partner’s job. What exacerbates it in upper-middle class is the instability of paid help and the enormous demands of the career system in which both partners become willing believers. But the tug between traditional and egalitarian models of marriage runs from top to bottom of the class ladder.”
—Arlie Hochschild (20th century)
“They want to play at being mothers. So let them. Expressing tenderness in their own way will not prevent girls from enjoying a successful career in the future; indeed, the ability to nurture is as valuable a skill in the workplace as the ability to lead.”
—Anne Roiphe (20th century)
“It is a great many years since at the outset of my career I had to think seriously what life had to offer that was worth having. I came to the conclusion that the chief good for me was freedom to learn, think, and say what I pleased, when I pleased. I have acted on that conviction... and though strongly, and perhaps wisely, warned that I should probably come to grief, I am entirely satisfied with the results of the line of action I have adopted.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)