ROB HULLS: Well students, thanks for joining me again and today I have as my special guest,
media superstar and now barrister, Mark Holden.
Mark thanks for joining me.
MARK HOLDEN: Thanks Rob thanks for inviting me.
ROB HULLS: Well Mark you actually initially studied law in Adelaide in the early 1970s
and then you went to the University of New South Wales, you then became a singing superstar,
a heartthrob, I guess with a penchant for carnations, one of your earliest hits was,
“I’m never going to fall in love again,” but you actually did fall in love again.
You fell in love with the law again.
What put you back to it?
MARK HOLDEN: Well I lived in America for 18 years - from 1980-1996, my daughter was conceived
and I thought I don’t want my daughter to grow up in America.
I want her to have her roots in Australia I decided to come back to Melbourne and then
I thought, well what am I going to do.
I had dropped out of law in my final year, much to my parent’s horror in the early
70s to become a pop star and it’s just something I always thought was unfinished business.
ROB HULLS: How hard was it?
How hard was it after all that time going back?
MARK HOLDEN: It was fantastic.
I loved it!
I loved going to uni it actually meant something to me this time around.
I had a point of view, I had life experience.
So law wasn’t some theoretical thing, it became something that really has a place in
society and it meant something to me.
MARK HOLDEN: Particularly intellectual property, I got my only High Distinction ever in Intellectual
property; why because I loved it!
And I loved sitting in the law library, I loved thinking and working it through and
I was afraid that my brain would find it hard to cope with, but I didn’t.
ROB HULLS: You’ve certainly had a varied and well publicised career.
In fact, you’re one of the very few people I’ve met who’s been a judge before being
a barrister and in fact, you’ve also been a young doctor.
But what is the best part of the gig you have now?
The best part about being a barrister after all that?
MARK HOLDEN: I’ll tell you, the most satisfying thing, the most satisfying experience I’ve
had as a barrister was a Children’s Court matter I had.
I got $400 for the 2 years.
But It was a private matter, and a woman who was my own age, an Indigenous woman, her son
and his partner were both incarcerated, both had drug problems.
She wanted custody of the child and the child was put in the care of the department.
There was a grandmother that was there at the birth, going “I’m ready, I’ll take
the child” and also an Indigenous child.
The way the Act is written now, it’s a new Act and the Act is written to basically end
the stolen generation concept and yet here we had a child who was put in the care of
the Department albeit indigenous, albeit the grandmother ready to go, and unfortunately
it took us two years.
One of the best moments I had was with a whole bunch of solicitors sitting in the back of
the Magistrates Children Court The day we walked out of that Court, with a lovely Magistrate,
the Magistrate gave the child a little koala, but when she walked out of that court with
the actual care of her grandchild in her hands, that’s the best day I’ve ever had.
ROB HULLS: So I guess a lot of our students part way through their course, think to themselves;
“ it’s hard, should I continue doing it, am I going to be able to make a difference
when I finish law,” but you’re really saying that it absolutely makes a difference
to people’s life’s.
MARK HOLDEN: No question about it.
I had cancer in 2010 in my first year of practice actually and the surgeon was so fantastic
to me, he saved my life.
He came at a time when I needed his help.
Well I think barristers and lawyers are that person as well, that come into a person’s
life at a critical point where they’re in jeopardy of some kind, it might be criminal,
it might be financial, it might be in this case, a situation with custody or whatever
and you are the surgeon.
You are the person that is interacting with their life at a moment of real jeopardy and
you have a positive role to play.
And your role in a criminal situation may just be properly advising, properly you know,
getting the best result you can.
It may not be keeping the person out of jail but it might be organising care, it might
be organising treatment, making sure things are hooked up.
So you know, there’s a lot of ways that you can be positive.
ROB HULLS: Our students are post graduate students, many of them are working, so they’ve
done something else, they’re looking for people like you to give advice.
People like you have had an enormously varied career, pretty exciting career, come back
to the law late.
If you had a couple pieces of advice for our students, take into account your background
and what you’re doing now, what would those bits of advice be?
MARK HOLDEN: I would say follow your heart, do what makes you feel good.
Not necessarily just a corporate or a money ladder, at different stages of your life that
can be very important, but the thing that I’ve found and the thing I can honestly
say with my whole heart is that I do things a lot of times for no money, but I think when
you do things well, miraculous money finds you.
I found that in my life, that when I do something well because I love it, because it’s important
to me, because I’m prepared to dig deep and go hard, miraculously somehow a rather,
money turns up.
But if your drive is to be social justice, if your drive is in those areas, I know enough
lawyers who devote themselves to that and still make a really good living.
You might give your time away a lot, this person I was telling you about who is a QC
that I’ve juniored on a number of matters over the last few years.
She’ll do things without any expectation of being paid but miraculously, because she
wins, even when she doesn’t, you know, she doesn’t care, she’s a prosperous person,
she’s a QC so every now and then a big fat check turns up her way but that’s not the
determinant for her.
That does not determine it.
What determines it for her, is there a social justice issue involved and do I feel I’m
on the right side of that social issue, although, sometimes we don’t have that.
You don’t necessarily get to choose your work sometimes; sometimes you’ve got to
take on things that might be distasteful to you because everyone deserves a proper defence.
And we don’t have that right to really pick and choose it that way.
At least our bar rules tell us we shouldn’t.
ROB HULLS: Okay.
Well students I think there’s some pretty good advice there; follow your heart, be passionate
about what you want to achieve, whether it is in a large law firm or doing socially just
work, but follow your heart and you too, like Mark, could then, who knows get a touchdown.
Thanks for joining us.
MARK HOLDEN: (Laughs) AUDIO: Ambient music fades out.
TEXT ON SCREEN: RMIT University Logo.
www.rmit.edu.au This video features the audio “High Floss” by “The Music Bakery”
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