2018 WA Lee Equity Lecture: Equity in an Age of Uncertainty

Abstract

May I commence by acknowledging the honour done to me by asking me to give this, the nineteenth WA Lee lecture. I studied Equity, in part, under Professor Lee and he was a prominent member of the teaching community at my University College. 

At that time, and later, I came to appreciate the extent to which his reputation was established, not just in Australia, but throughout the common law world. Perhaps the most telling of a number of indications, once publications such as the masterful Ford & Lee are put to one side, is the fact that when Donovan Waters QC, former Oxford don, STEP Honorary Member and one of the negotiators of the Hague Trust Convention,[1] visited Australia as a guest of STEP, the one Australian he specifically asked us to arrange for him to meet was Tony Lee. 

So to give this lecture before an audience including Tony Lee fills me with not a little trepidation. He – and no doubt many others of you – will be immediately aware of any errors or imperfections.  It is small consolation that, on this occasion at least, he will not be marking the paper.