User:Wandering bark/Greg Woods

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Gregory David Woods, QC (born, 12 February 1945) is an Australian judge and legal historian.

Education

Woods was School Captain of Fairfield Boys' High School, from which he graduated in 1960 as joint Dux. He completed a Bachelor of Laws (Hons) at Sydney University in 1964. One of his contemporaries at law school was future High Court judge Mary Gaudron. He went on to obtain DipEd, LLM and PhD qualifications from the same institution.

Career

From 1971-79 Woods lectured in law at Sydney University. With P G Ward, Woods co-authored Law and Order in Australia (1972). During this period he was admitted to the New South Wales Bar and began practising primarily in criminal matters. In 1981, at the age of 36, he was appointed as Queen's Counsel. He is widely lauded as the architect of the sexual assault law reforms of that year. At this time he was the Director of the Criminal Law Review Division of the Department of the Attorney-General and Justice in New South Wales. He went on to practise as a Public Defender and then at the private Bar for several years until his appointment to the District Court in 1997. Over the course of his career at the bar, he acted as counsel for accused persons including former cabinet minister Al Grassby; Lindy Chamberlain, mother of Azaria Chamberlain; and Colin Campbell, of the Bandidos Motorcycle Club, in connexion with the Milperra Massacre of 1984. Woods appeared with Sir Maurice Byers in the leading constitutional case Kable v DPP.

Honours

He is the author of A History of Criminal Law in New South Wales: The Colonial Period 1788-1900 (2002) and co-author with P G Ward of Law and Order in Australia (1972).

He is the former Director of the Criminal Law Review Division of the Department of the Attorney-General and Justice in New South Wales. Since 1997, he has served as a judge of the New South Wales District Court.