american legal history

In this episode of the podcast, the Hon Margaret McMurdo AC pays tribute to the life and work of Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman to be appointed a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. 

Throughout her long and distinguished legal career, Justice O’Connor bore witness to changing attitudes and opportunities for women in the law. 

She became one of the most influential members of the Supreme Court, and her moderate and more narrowly expressed approach regularly proved to be decisive of the outcome. 

Listen as Justice McMurdo, the first woman to be appointed as presiding judge of an Australian appellate court, explores O’Connor’s influence on generations of women lawyers and judicial officers in the US and Australia.  

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr (1841–1935) was a scholar and jurist of indisputable brilliance, widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential judges in the English speaking world.

Of all of his opinions, nothing defines his life’s work better than his famous approach to the First Amendment. Although no right seems more fundamental to American public life than freedom of speech, the Supreme Court did not strike down any law on First Amendment grounds until the mid-twentieth century. In fact, the court repeatedly affirmed imprisonment for dissidents who were merely speaking out against government policies. Modern First Amendment law can be traced directly to a series of eloquent dissents by Holmes in subversive advocacy cases in the aftermath of the First World War.

In the centenary year of his most famous dissent, this lecture examines a man of complexity and apparent contradictions through the prism of his approach to freedom of speech cases and seeks to identify what contemporary lawyers can learn from Holmes’ life experience, philosophy and eloquent contributions to the law.

https://legalheritage.sclqld.org.au/selden-society