William Montague Charles Gummow was born on 9 October 1942 and is a former Justice of the High Court of Australia, the highest court in the Australian court hierarchy.
25 Facts About William Gummow
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William Gummow was appointed to the Court of Final Appeal of Hong Kong on 8 April 2013 as a non-permanent judge from other common law jurisdictions.
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William Gummow went on to study at the University of Sydney, where he graduated as Bachelor of Arts, and later Master of Laws, both with first-class honours.
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William Gummow first practiced as a solicitor with law firm Allen Allen and Hemsley.
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William Gummow was admitted as a solicitor in 1966 and became a partner of the firm in 1969.
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William Gummow had a diverse practice, including banking law, trusts and revenue law, intellectual property litigation, commercial transactions and some constitutional law.
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In 1986, Justice William Gummow was appointed to the Federal Court of Australia.
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William Gummow was appointed to the High Court of Australia in April 1995.
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William Gummow retired from the High Court on 8 October 2012, upon reaching the constitutionally mandatory retirement age of 70.
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William Gummow remains in the position as of June 2024, along with other Australian judges Patrick Keane and James Allsop, after British judge Jonathan Sumption resigned, criticising the judiciary of Hong Kong after 14 prominent democratic activists were convicted for subversion.
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For 30 years, from the year of his graduation until his appointment as a judge, William Gummow taught at the Faculty of Law at the University of Sydney.
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William Gummow further advocated the need for practitioners in legal education, who were exposed to 'the law in action'.
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William Gummow's judgments are notable for their careful attention to statutory language and context, and are marked by a thorough and scholarly examination of doctrinal history.
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William Gummow is particularly known for his contribution to intellectual property law and equity.
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Any attempt to select notable judgments of Justice William Gummow is made difficult because he is so often a participant in joint judgments, whose authorship cannot be attributed.
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William Gummow is the author of, or participant in, numerous leading judgments in intellectual property law.
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Statistics in recent years have consistently shown Justice William Gummow to be most likely to participate or be joined in a majority opinion.
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William Gummow only dissented once in 2006, out of 55 judgments.
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Justice William Gummow often joins with Justice Hayne; in 2006 this number was 40 joint judgments.
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William Gummow has written extensively and has published numerous essays and articles.
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William Gummow is the author of books including Change and Continuity: Statute, Equity, and Federalism, which is based upon the lectures he delivered at Oxford University in 1999 as part of the Clarendon law lectures series.
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William Gummow is a co-author of Jacobs' Law of Trusts in Australia, and Equity: Doctrines and Remedies, the pre-eminent text on equity in Australia.
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William Gummow wrote, with Dyson Heydon and Robert Austin, several editions of Cases and Materials on Equity and Trusts.
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In 2018, William Gummow suffered a blood clot in a leg following a long-haul flight and had to have part of his leg amputated in Sydney.
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William Gummow was appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia, Australia's highest civil honour, in 1997, and awarded the Centenary Medal in 2001.