The Prize for the 2010 Australian Legal History Essay Competition has been awarded to Sarah Webster, a Year 10 student at Cecil Hills High School in Sydney, whose work was supervised by Mr Ashok Shandil, a History Teacher at the School. Sarah's essay has been pubished in the Australian Bar Review.

The question for the 2010 Australian Legal History Essay Competition was:

“Can Australian History teach us anything about the role of altruism and personal responsibility in the law?”

The Competition offered an opportunity to explore the concept of a “duty of care” in the civil law of negligence; the idea, found in the criminal law of homicide, that, outside war, no person is entitled to save his or her life by killing another; and the notion of “Collective Wrongs” epitomised by the Australian Parliament’s apologies to “The Stolen Generations” and “The Forgotten Generations”.

"Who owns this land, anyway? ... Discuss whether Australian history has any lessons for us, today, about the meaning or significance of 'land ownership'. Do so by reference to one or more of: (a) Australia as a 'settled' or 'conquered' territory, and Aboriginal Land Rights; (b) the land titles system (known as the 'Torrens System') devised by Robert Richard Torrens; and/or (c) debate about whether Australia should, as a modern sovereign nation, be a republic."

Read the Description, Conditions of Entry and Guidelines for the 2009 Competition and the associated General Outline.

The Society published four "Background Research Papers" to assist participants in the Competition.

Paper one: Living with "Property". Living in "Community"

Paper two: Folklore Rules: The Origins and Growth of Australian Law

Paper three: Snapshots in the Mirror: Paradigms for Australia Day

Paper four: By your Deeds Be Known: Episodes in Australasian Legal History

Tony Cunneen, the Senior Studies Coordinator at St Pius X College, provided a teachers perspective on the Background Research Papers for the 2009 Essay Competition.

The Forbes Society has decided to award three prizes to essayists who submitted entries in the 2008 Australian Legal History Essay Competition: two to Tertiary Students, and one to a Junior High School Student.

The winners in the University or Tertiary Student Categories are Adam Arnold of the University of New South Wales and Sarah Dorn of the University of Melbourne. Each student received a personal prize of $500 and a $1,000 Abbey’s Book Voucher. Each student’s university has also received a prize of $500. Adam’s essay has been published in the Australian Bar Review and on the website of The Australian newspaper

The winner in the Junior High School Category is Ben Nam of Year 8 at St Pius X College at Chatswood in NSW. Ben received a personal prize of $250 and a $250 Abbey’s Book Voucher. His school received a prize of $500 together with a $500 Abbey’s Book Voucher.

Prizes were awarded at a ceremony in the Mitchell Library, Sydney, on 25 February 2009. Sir Gerard Brennan AC KBE was at the ceremony to congratulate the winners. View Sir Gerard's speech.

The Society acknowledges the support given to the Competition by The New South Wales Bar Association, The Division of Law at Macquarie University, The Law Society of New South Wales, Abbey’s Bookshop, The Federation Press, State Records NSW, The State Library of NSW and The Legal Affairs Section of The Australian newspaper. Particular thanks are due to Abbey’s and The Australian.

The Society commends all students who entered the Competition and thanks them, and their respective universities and schools, for their participation. The Society is encouraged by the standard of entries, and the fact that entries were received from essayists across Australia.

The question for the 2008 Competition was:

“How can a lawyer defend somebody he or she “knows” is “guilty”?... What is it to “know” that somebody is “guilty”?... Okay, to be more precise: What are, or should be, the ethical obligations of a lawyer acting for a client who, after being charged with a crime, makes a confidential confession of guilt?” 

Discuss this question from the perspective of a member of the community (who is not a lawyer) using examples drawn from the Dean Controversy (1895-1896) and/or Tuckiar’s Case (1932-1934).

The competition was open to all students enrolled, at any time during 2008, in an Australian secondary school, any undergraduate degree course at an Australian university, and any tertiary course leading to admission as an Australian legal practitioner. It was not confined to students enrolled in formal courses of study in history or law.

Read the Description, Conditions of Entry & Guidelines>

• “Background Information Paper”
• introductions to the Dean Controversy and Tuckiar v The King and
• law reports for In Re Meagher (1896) 17 NSWLR (law) 157 and Tuckiar v The King (1934) 52 CLR 335

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On Australia Day, 26 January 2008 the Society announced that James Triggs (a Year 9 Student, in 2007, at Doncaster Secondary College in Victoria), and his school, have been awarded prizes - worth $1,850.00 - for James' Essay entitled "Authority, Democracy and the Rule of Law". An edited version was published in the Australian Bar Review (2008) 30 Aust Bar Rev 221. 

The topic was 'Authority, Democracy and the Rule of Law - What does it all mean for us today? Does Australian History provide any insights?'

Essayists were invited to discuss those questions, referring to one or both of:

(a) The Rum Rebellion, 1808; and/or

(b) The Waterloo Creek Massacre and its aftermath, 1838.

View the 2007 Competition Guidelines

View Background Research Papers

The Rum Rebellion, 1808: A Lesson in Nation Building, which Justice Peter Young described as "probably the most balanced account of the Rum Rebellion" (2008) 82 ALJ 7 at p.8.

Aboriginal Colonists and the Law, 1838