Visit by The Honourable Chief Justice James Allsop AO

NUS Law welcomed the Honourable Chief Justice James Allsop AO, Chief Justice of the Federal Court of Australia, to the Bukit Timah Campus on 3 October 2017. He was greeted by Professor Simon Chesterman, Dean of NUS Law and Professor Lucy Reed, Director of the Centre for International Law. Several faculty members and researchers also joined them for an interesting exchange of ideas at the Lee Sheridan Conference room.

Chief Justice Allsop was in Singapore as the speaker for the SAL Distinguished Speaker Lecture series. He lectured on the topic “Doctrine of Penalties in Modern Contract Law”, where he examined the history of the doctrine of penalties, its development and its place in modern contract law. It considered the extent to which apparently clear differences between ultimate appellate courts in the United Kingdom and Australia truly reflect doctrinal differences.

About Chief Justice James Allsop AO
From 1981 to 2001, Chief Justice Allsop practised at the Bar in New South Wales and elsewhere in Australia. He was appointed Senior Counsel in New South Wales in 1994 and Queen’s Counsel in Western Australia in 1998. From 7 May 2001 to 1 June 2008, he served as a Judge of the Federal Court of Australia. From 2 June 2008 to 28 February 2013, he was President of the New South Wales Court of Appeal. He was appointed Chief Justice of the Federal Court of Australia as of 1 March 2013.

From 1981 to 2014 he taught part-time at the University of Sydney. He currently lectures part-time in maritime law at the University of Queensland and was appointed Adjunct Professor from 1 July 2016 for a period of 3 years.
In 2010, he was elected as an Honorary Bencher of the Middle Temple. In 2013, he was elected a member of the American Law Institute.