Brief history

 

On 7 May 1968, 25 legal practitioners met together (with proxies for five others) to form the Law Society Northern Territory.

Darwin lawyer Richard Keller convened the meeting. Mr Keller had been part of a steering committee formed the previous year to write to other Australian law societies to gain an overall picture of which direction the Territory's law society should take.

He described the event as a milestone in the history of the Northern Territory, which until then was the only part of the Commonwealth of Australia which had no such body.

The Society and its membership has since grown. Currently there are over 500 members of the Society.

Mandatory Reading, Lawyers and Life in the Northern Territory (2018) is a 50th anniversary publication which covers the history of the Society and the Territory in great detail.

 

Past Presidents

1968 Ronald Withnall	1969 Alexander Rorrison	1970-72 Ian Barker	1973-74 Dean Mildren
1975-76 Paul Everingham	1978 Nerolie Withnall	1979-80 Dean Mildren	1981-82 Terence Coulehan
1983-84 Hugh Bradley	1985-86 Richard Giles	1987 Graham Hiley	1988 Kim Graves
1989 Ian Briggs	1990-91 John Stirk	1992-93 Neville Henwood	1994-96 Terence Gardner
1997-98 Stephen Southwood	1999-00 Jon Tippett	2001-02 Ian Morris	2003-04 Merran Short
2005-06 Allison Robertson	2007-08 Duncan McConnel	2009-10 Matthew Storey	2011-13 Peggy Cheong
2014-16 Tass Liveris	2017-20 Maria Savvas