2024 Hal Wootten Lecture
Thursday 31 October 2024 from 6:30pm to 8pm
David Heilpern on Imagining the Future – a nimble and responsive legislature in the criminal justice arena.
The Hal Wootten Lecture was established in 2006 by UNSW Law & Justice in honour of founding Dean, Emeritus Professor Hal Wootten.
This lecture is a highlight of the Faculty's year and commemorates Hal Wootten's founding vision for the Faculty – that a Law School should have and communicate to its students a keen concern for those on whom the law bears harshly.
About this year's speaker
David Heilpern was appointed as a Magistrate in 1998 and was at the time the youngest magistrate in Australia. He sat in the criminal, mining, family, industrial, coronial and children’s jurisdictions of the Local Court, and was the Senior Civil Magistrate for five years. During his time on the bench, David was the principal educator for new magistrates throughout Australia and the Pacific and made several important reported decisions on criminal, environmental and evidence law.
Prior to his appointment, David was a litigation lawyer on the North Coast where he co-founded the law school at Southern Cross University in 1992, subsequently teaching in a range of subjects including constitutional law, criminal law and procedure and contracts. At the time, it was the first non-metropolitan law school in Australia. David maintained a litigation practice throughout this period, representing a wide range of defendants including high profile clients North East Forrest Alliance and Nimbin Hemp.
David is a prolific author of books and journal articles on a range of legal and judicial topics, as well as being a prize-winning short story writer, columnist and poet. He regularly speaks at practical law conferences in Australia and internationally on advocacy, criminal law and courtcraft.
David retired from the magistracy in 2020 and in August 2022, he was appointed as Dean of Law at SCU. His writing and research is now focussed on victim’s rights, drug law reform, aboriginal overrepresentation in the criminal justice system and environmental activism.