Hal Wootten
John Halden Wootten QC (19 December 1922 – 27 July 2021) was an Australian lawyer and legal academic and the founder of the University of New South Wales Faculty of Law, of which he was the Foundation Chair and its inaugural Dean. Wootten served in multiple capacities and offices, including as a Judge of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, a Chairman of the Law Reform Commission of New South Wales, and a Deputy President of the Native Title Tribunal. Early life and education John Halden Wootten was born to a lower-middle-class family of dairy farmers from the North Coast region of New South Wales and is of English descent. Wootten's father grew up at Hal's paternal grandparents' farm in Alstonville, alongside Hal's uncles, in a Methodist upbringing. Wootten's father died when Hal was 11 months old; he was raised by his mother and, primarily, her parents, with whom Wootten lived until he was 9 years old. As a result of his mother's uncontrolled diabetes, Wootten was born a "huge baby", with two broken arms. One of these arms might have otherwise withered were it not for intervention by an elderly black woman who worked for Wootten's mother, who