The Honourable Justice Thomas Bradley

The Pinnacle Foundation’s first Queensland-based Ambassador, Justice Bradley was born in Cairns. He was educated at St Bernard’s School and Clairvaux College in Brisbane and, in 1987, graduated from the University of Queensland—Bachelor of Laws.

In July 1989, his Honour completed articles of clerkship at Morris Fletcher & Cross and was admitted as a solicitor. On 1 July 1991, he was appointed as a Senior Associate of the firm, which later became Minter Ellison. As a solicitor, his practice was in commercial litigation and, later, corporate advisory. He served on secondment in corporate counsel roles for Cable & Wireless Optus, Incitec, Department of Transport and Shell Australia.

On 1 August 2000, Justice Bradley commenced practice at the private Bar in Brisbane. On 14 November 2013, his Honour was commissioned as Queen’s Counsel. At the Bar, his Honour’s practice was predominantly in commercial disputes with a particular focus on economic regulation, competition, energy and resources and construction.

Justice Bradley was a member of the Bar Council (2016-2018) and Treasurer of the Bar Association of Queensland (2017-2018). His Honour was a Deputy Chair of the Competition & Consumer Committee of the Law Council of Australia Business Law Section (2011-2014). His Honour has been a member of the Supreme Court Library Legal Heritage Sub-Committee since 2013.

Justice Bradley is the Queensland honorary correspondent of the Selden Society. Founded in 1887, the Selden Society is a learned society and publisher, formed as a charitable trust, to encourage the study and advance knowledge of English legal history. His Honour has presented three papers for the Selden Society: Dr Simpson and the Origins of the Qld Courts (2013), Innocent Diversions: Legal Dress (2015) and The Dobell Case (2016).

Justice Bradley was a part-time lecturer in Industrial Law at the University of Queensland (1993-1996) and the Queensland University of Technology (1992-1994). In 1994, he published The New Employment Law. His Honour is an Honorary Life Member of the University of Queensland Law Alumni Association.

Before appointment to the Court, Justice Bradley was a member of the practitioner panel of the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal, having served as a sessional member of QCAT (2009-2011) and the Commercial & Consumer Tribunal (2004-2009).

Justice Bradley is a long-term supporter of the arts and literature and is the chair of the Brisbane Festival Giving Committee, which raises funds to commission new work, tour international performers and support independent artists at the Brisbane Festival. He was President of Access Arts (2013-2019), a body working to support access to the arts for people with disability or disadvantage since 1983. He is deputy chair of the Brisbane Writers Festival, the second longest running writer’s festival in Australia, which for 57 years has been bringing communities together to debate, share experiences and celebrate the power and wonder of literature. He is a member of The Australiana Fund Queensland committee. His Honour formerly served on the Council of the National Library of Australia (2014-2018) and the Foundation Committee of the Queensland Art Gallery/Gallery of Modern Art (2013-2019). He remains a patron of the National Library and a vice-patron of the QAGOMA Foundation.

His Honour maintains an active interest in the visual and performing arts. His own arts career peaked at age 9, when his Honour won second prize in charcoal drawing at the Mount Gravatt Show and played Eric the Red in Vic the Viking.

Justice Bradley is a Fellow of the Royal Numismatic Society and a member of the Royal Queensland Historical Society.

Justice Bradley was appointed a judge of the Supreme Court of Queensland in 2018 and Ambassador to The Pinnacle Foundation in October 2019.