Gordon Samuels
AC CVO QC

The Hon Gordon Samuels Memorial Ceremony

Monday 25 February 2008, 5-7pm, Sir John Clancy Auditorium, UNSW.

The Hon Gordon Samuels, AC, 84, died on 10 December 2007. Gordon Samuels was Chancellor of UNSW from 1976 to 1994. Mr Samuels was also the Patron of Law Alumni Chapter and a major contributor to today’s success and reputation of the Law Faculty.

Memorial Ceremony details on UNSW website >

 

 

 

In accepting the invitation to become the Patron of the UNSW Law Alumni Chapter, the Hon. Gordon J. Samuels AC CVO QC is continuing a long and highly-valued association both with the Faculty of Law and with UNSW itself. He was UNSW's longest-serving Chancellor (from 1976 to his retirement in 1994), and personally presided at Law Graduations throughout that period.

At the same time, Mr Samuels is adding a lustre to the Law Alumni Chapter that derives from one of the most distinguished legal and public service careers in New South Wales. Governor of New South Wales from 1996 to 2001, Chairman of the NSW Law Reform Commission from 1993 to 1996 and a Judge of the NSW Supreme Court from 1972, and of the Court of Appeal from 1974, to 1992, Mr Samuels has carried out numerous other legal, academic and public roles since the early 1960s.

These include Chairman of the NSW Migrant Employment and Qualifications Board, Presiding Member of the Independent Advisory Committee on the Educational Needs of Overseas Trained Doctors, Chairman of the Australian Legal Education Council, President of the Security Appeals Tribunal and many others.

"In 1969 - 70, when the Faculty was being established, I represented the Bar on the Supreme Court's Curriculum Committee, and was able to assist the Foundation Dean, Hal Wootten, in persuading the Committee to endorse what then seemed to many to be a most radical new syllabus," said Mr Samuels.

"Since then I have maintained an association with the Faculty which I greatly value. I see the Law Alumni Chapter as a vital means of ensuring for the Faculty the loyalty and support of its graduates, essential elements in preserving the Faculty's status and enhancing its public image.

"It is a great pleasure and honour to serve as Patron of the Chapter."