Reflections of my career as a Judge

Chairman Geoff McCormick

The Honourable Paul Coghlan AO KC, Office of Special Investigator Paul Coghlan was admitted to practice in Victoria in 1969, signed the Bar Roll in 1978 and was appointed Queens’s Counsel in 1995. He has held the positions of Commonwealth Prosecutor Deputy Crown Solicitor’s Office, Commonwealth Associate Director of Public Prosecutions, Senior Crown Prosecutor (Major Trials), Chief Crown Prosecutor and Director of Public Prosecutions for Victoria. He prosecuted a large number of major trials, including homicide, commercial fraud and drugs. He was appointed to the Trial Division of the Supreme Court of Victoria in 2007 and became the Principal Judge of the Criminal Division between 2010 and 2013. In 2013 he was appointed to the Court of Appeal and retired in 2014. He was appointed a Reserve Judge of the Court of Appeal in 2014. He sat on a regular basis except for brief periods in 2017 and 2019 when he completed reviews of the Bail Act 1977 for the State of Victoria. Paul Coghlan was the re-appointed a Reserve Judge of the Court of Appeal as from 8 May 2018, and continued to sit regularly, and on a full-time basis. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia in the 2019 Queen’s Birthday Honours for distinguished service to the law, and to the judiciary, and to the administration and review of criminal justice. In May 2022 he was appointed Special Adviser to the Special Investigator.