John Brooksby

John Brooksby was educated at St. Edwards School in Oxford and completed his Articles with firms in Leeds, Cardiff and London. He specialised in Litigation work generally including Family law, personal injury and contractual disputes and was admitted as a practitioner in the UK in 1972. He migrated to Western Australia in 1974 and was admitted here in that year.

He was also admitted in Papua New Guinea in 1976 in order to appear in Court there in a large Inheritance Act claim proceeding in that jurisdiction, and to the High Court of Australia in 1978.

John initially worked with Dwyer Durack and Dunphy and moved to Paterson and Dowding in 1977. At that time Paterson and Dowding worked solely in the area of Family Law and John was recruited to set up a personal injury and industrial law Practice from scratch relying on Peter Dowding’s contacts within the Labor Party and the Trades and Labour Council.

The firm built up a very significant practice and John was involved in many inter-Union demarcation disputes, unfair dismissals and all aspects of Industrial Law both State and Federal, as well as building up a significant Workers Compensation and personal injury practice.

John continued to be involved in many other areas of law at the same time including Inheritance Act disputes, Commercial and insurance litigation, contractual disputes and a variety of other civil litigation.

During this time John conducted trials, appeals and all forms of advocacy work.

In 1988 John left Paterson and Dowding to set up an insurance based practice Greenland Brooksby until 2007. During those years John was appointed to the Insurance Commission panel of lawyers and acted for many Insurance Companies mainly in personal injury litigation but also in Contractual disputes and dispute as to policy interpretation. Throughout that time John conducted numerous trials and appeals and appeared in many Administrative and Statutory Tribunals and at inquests .

In 2007 John joined WHL Legal as a Director and in-House Counsel.

John joined John Toohey Chambers in order to practise exclusively as a Barrister in July 2011 until May 2020.

In June 2020 John set up Michael Kirby Chambers in the Perth CBD with a number of colleagues in honour of the Hon Michael Kirby AC CMG.