ZENA SACHS 1913 – 2011

This is a shortened form of an obituary submitted for publication to The Sydney Morning Herald by Leonie Star. ZENA SACHS 1913 – 2011 Zena Sachs, who died on 31 July 2011 aged 97, was born in Sydney in 1913, the youngest child of a large family of Jewish immigrants who had moved from Poland to England before finally settling in Australia. She attended North Newtown Primary School and Sydney Girls High School, where she decided to become a teacher. However, as the Depression meant that few, if any, teacher training places were available, Zena took a secretarial course; she worked for several establishments, including an ice works in Enmore. In 1942 a friend suggested she should apply for the position of secretary to the newly formed Morale Committee, set up by the Federal Government. Its aim was to improve civilian morale, which was low after the shock bombing of Darwin and the imposition of relatively stringent wartime restrictions. The formidable Julius Stone, Challis Professor of Jurisprudence and International Law at the University of Sydney, was the committee’s head. This was where she was first introduced to the world of academia, which she found fascinating. She resigned from the Morale Committee after a year to be come secretary to Professor R. C. Mills, the inaugural chairman of the Universities Commission, and in 1947 went to work for Stone as his secretary. Stone had realised Zena’s intellectual potential and persuaded her to enrol in a university course. She began the study of law in 1946, the year when universities throughout Australia were flooded with returned servicemen. There were six women in Zena’s year, and all graduated. She was one of the new barristers whose admission in 1950 was noted in a newspaper article entitled ‘four women admitted to the bar’. Zena’s close friend the Hon. Judith Cohen, A.O., a retired judge in Victoria, went on to a distinguished public career. Zena’s career was less prominent. On graduating with honours she became Stone’s research assistant in 1950, remaining in this position all her working life. Nevertheless her contribution to the law and to its practitioners cannot be overstated. From 1946 to 1972, when jurisprudence was a compulsory subject at the University of Sydney Law School, then the only law school in the state, every student and therefore every member of the profession knew her; many still remember her. Her ability to communicate with students was regarded as rare in the early post-war days; she not only knew them by name but also followed their progress and often provided emotional support. Her rapport with them was such that, even in advanced age, she could recall the characteristics and assess the ability of the people who are now solicitors and barristers, academics and judges, even politicians. Her confidential comments were always fair and tended to be positive rather than critical. She retained a special fondness for two retired High Court judges, Justice Mary Gaudron, the first woman to sit on the High Court, and Justice Michael Kirby. Zena worked for Stone for 40 years, moving to the University of New South Wales with him in 1973 after his retirement from the University of Sydney. His academic output was prodigious and Zena was at the centre of the Stone ‘industry’. While he employed many researchers and secretarial staff, he was well aware of her contribution, dedicating Human Law and Human Justice (1965) to her. When Zena was a law student, women were allocated a small common room on the same floor as Stone’ office, which was isolated from those of the rest of the academic staff. Women students were separated from the bulk of their classmates, which contributed to a warm camaraderie among them. Possibly out of this supportive environment came the idea in the early 1950s to establish an association for women in the profession. Realising how important it was in the post-war period for women in law to have an alliance of their own, Zena became a founding member of the Women’s Lawyer’s Association of NSW, later becoming a Life Member in honour of her tireless work for the organisation. Together with other founding members, she was honoured in 2002 at the 50th Anniversary Dinner at the NSW Parliament House, an occasion she remembered with joy and referred to often. The Association is still a vibrant centre for the promotion of the education and standing of women in the legal world. Zena was a loving and much loved member of a large family, in England and the United States as well as in Australia. She had adored her mother, saying late in life that she had thought of her every single day since she died. Zena did not marry and remained in the family home throughout her life. There she lovingly undertook the traditional womanly duty of caring for her invalid mother for many years, assisted in this task by her eldest sister Elsie. In time Zena cared for her in a similar way. She was able to reconcile this somewhat early twentieth century ideal of womanly behaviour with her own strong feminist principles and an active professional life. Zena made friends easily and kept them close. Her circle ranged from judges, academics and fellow lawyers to those she encountered in non-professional situations. Those who knew her remember a woman with an acute intelligence, a ready and often sharp sense of humour, a love of knowledge of all kinds and an impeccable moral code. A devotee of opera and a keen theatre goer, she read widely, especially the classics of English literature, which she continued to access through ‘talking books’ as her sight faded. But perhaps most important was her loving nature. Zena was warm, had an understanding of human frailties and was compassionate to the end. She led a long and productive life and will be sadly missed.