Hal Wootten

John Halden Wootten QC (19 December 1922 – 27 July 2021) was an Australian lawyer and legal academic and the founder of the University of New South Wales Faculty of Law, of which he was the Foundation Chair and its inaugural Dean. Wootten served in multiple capacities and offices, including as a Judge of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, a Chairman of the Law Reform Commission of New South Wales, and a Deputy President of the Native Title Tribunal.

Early life and education John Halden Wootten was born to a lower-middle-class family of dairy farmers from the North Coast region of New South Wales and is of English descent. graduating in the class of 1939, and the University of Sydney, from 1940 to 1945,

Career

Early career During his university studies, and interested in languages but dissuaded by his teacher-turned-school principal paternal uncle,

In 1949, Wootten was called to the bar in New South Wales In 1966, he took silk. On 24 January 1966, the Foundation Chair of Law was created, with the appointee to also be the Dean of the Faculty of Law. and the Australian Conservation Foundation, as its president, Following Rupert Murdoch's takeover of The Herald and Weekly Times and a decision from the 15-member council against calling on the Commonwealth Government for an independent tribunal to vet proposed media takeovers and in light of the council's failure to object to Murdoch's control of 70% of Australia's print media and the sense that both of these events were wrong and unjust, Wootten resigned in protest, alongside John Lawrence, a former federal president of the Australian Journalists Association.

Honours In 1990 Wootten was appointed Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) for "service to human rights, to conservation, to legal education and to the law". In 1994, Wootten was awarded an honorary LL.D. in recognition for his services to the law and the UNSW Faculty of Law.

Personal life and death Wootten was married three times. His first wife was Dorothy Adam, with whom he had four children; they separated in the early 1970s. In 1976 he married Jane Mathews (1940–2019) who was judge in the District, Supreme, and Federal Courts. After that marriage also ended in divorce, in 1991 a professor of anthropology at the University of Sydney.

Wootten died on 27 July 2021 at the age of 98. He was survived by his wife, Gillian Cowlishaw.