Reform
Australia's Golden Era of Social and Legal Reform 1965 - 1995
The Memoir of a Participant
Terry Purcell
Paperback, 392 pages, $39.95
ISBN: 9781922815941
Publication date: Feb 2024
Terry Purcell was a valiant leader of a bunch of constitutional
outliers including myself and genial Peter Garrett who wanted to
introduce peace, aspiration and reasonable idealism into a constitution.
- Thomas Keneally, AO
The work Terry, myself and others contributed to constitutional reform was important and can inform current events.
- Peter Garrett, AM
During my tenure as the Attorney General of NSW, there were two
unprecedented, but much-needed projects introduced largely by the Law
Foundation and its Director, Terry Purcell.
- Terry Sheahan, AO
As a society evolves, so must its laws. Purcell's instructive memoir
of achieving genuine social and legal change will inspire the reformers
of today and tomorrow.
Entering law in the early 1960s, author Terry Purcell quickly recognised
the limitations of the existing legal services programmes and wanted to
help find better ways these services could be accessed and delivered.
From humble beginnings as a child in Sydney's inner west, winning a
Churchill Fellowship gave Purcell the unique and timely opportunity to
learn how social and legal reforms were being implemented overseas.
Purcell met and spoke with many passionate lawyers and some of the great
reformers of the day whilst travelling through an America rocked by the
Watergate scandal, including visiting a legal aid programme on the
Navajo reservation, seeing firsthand the poverty of Southside Chicago
and then meeting with committed lawyers in Canada and the UK's highly
developed welfare state.
Back in Australia as Director of the Law Foundation of NSW from 1973 to
1995, Purcell encouraged and funded many reform initiatives including
the digitisation of legal data, social science research of the legal
profession and encouraging community access to legal information by
publishing 'Australia's Constitution - Time for Change', the 'Pocket
Guide to the Law' and The Law Handbook'. The Law Foundation also
supported The NSW College of Law, the Public Interest Advocacy Centre,
legal studies in schools, Continuing Legal Education, and Community
Justice Centres, and helped modernise the NSW Court System.
As a witness and participant in Australia's golden age of social and
legal reform from 1965 to 1995, Purcell weathered the rise and fall of
governments. From the slow demise of the Menzies era to the promise of
Gough Whitlam, acknowledging key reforms of Askin and Wran ministers,
through the Fraser years onto the ambitious Hawke-Keating period-
Purcell remained steadfast in his belief in improving access to the law
for all.
Terry Purcell LLB was Director of The Law Foundation of NSW from 1973
to 1995 and was a founding partner in the estate planning firm
RetireLaw. Recently retired, Terry lives with his wife Pat on the
Northern Beaches and has five children and eleven grandchildren.
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