Raymond Finkelstein's judgments were highly influential in commercial law, giving rise to new approaches in insolvency, competition law and class actions.
10 Facts About Raymond Finkelstein
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Raymond Finkelstein was a teaching fellow at Monash University Law School from 1974 to 1975.
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In 1975 Raymond Finkelstein began practicing as a barrister at the Victorian bar.
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Raymond Finkelstein shared chambers with fellow Jews Ron Castan, Alan Goldberg and Ron Merkel.
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Raymond Finkelstein was appointed as a judge of the Federal Court of Australia on 21 July 1997.
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Raymond Finkelstein has presided over a number of notable cases, including the civil hearing of prominent Australian businessman Steve Vizard, in which he increased the sentence proposed in the Agreed Statement of Facts by both ASIC and Vizard to a $390,000 fine and a ban from holding company directorships for ten years.
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Raymond Finkelstein's judgment of Vizard attracted widespread media attention, but was widely misunderstood as the matter was a civil hearing, involving the review by the Court of an Agreed Statement of Facts The head of ASIC, Jeff Lucy, later conceded that much of the media outrage was caused by ASIC's failure to properly communicate the full facts to the media.
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Steve Vizard 8.
Raymond Finkelstein has been described as "independent, full of ideas, and unpredictable", often drawing on practices from other jurisdictions to inform the court's ruling, both procedural and substantive.
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Raymond Finkelstein headed the Independent Media Inquiry, starting from 14 September 2011, which examined the Australian media industry's regulatory framework.
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In 2003, Raymond Finkelstein entered into the debate on judicial activism in a journal article published in the Monash University Law Review, in which he stated that, while he opposes judges acting as "ad hoc legislators", it is naive to think that a judge's background, education, heritage and personal ethical views do not influence their decisions.