Louis Waller

Professor Louis Peter Waller AO (b. 1935) is an Australian jurist. He is particularly well known for his work in medical and criminal law. He was Sir Leo Cussen Professor of Law at Monash University from 1965 until 2000. He was the chairman of a number of medical and legal organisations, including the Infertility Treatment Authority. The Emeritus Professor continues to teach a course in Forensic Medicine to Monash University Law students at the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine.

Waller was born in Siedlce, Poland, on 10 February 1935. The child of Polish Jews, Waller's parents realised that the family was in danger of persecution from the increasingly threatening Nazi regime in Germany. They managed to flee to Australia in 1938. The majority of his family which remained in Europe, however, died during the Holocaust.

In Australia, Waller attended University High School in Melbourne. He then studied law at the University of Melbourne. When he graduated in 1956, he went to England where he obtained a Bachelor of Civil Law from the University of Oxford.

He married Wendy Poyser in 1959 and they together had four children: Michael (dec.), Anthony, Ian and Elly. Anthony and Elly live in Israel. Ian practises as a barrister in Melbourne and was appointed Senior Counsel in 2007.

Waller's career in academia began in the late 1950s, when he was appointed tutor and then senior lecturer at Melbourne University. In 1958, Monash University was founded and, a few years later, it opened a new law school. Its Foundation Dean, Professor David Derham, was a friend of Waller's who knew of his teaching and intellectual abilities. He invited Waller to help him create the new Monash Law School. On 1 June 1965, he was appointed Professor. Three years later, he was appointed Dean of Law, a position he held until 1970, after which he returned to focus on teaching and research. An apparently brilliant teacher, his students included future Justice of the High Court of Australia Kenneth Hayne, Chief Justice of Victoria Marilyn Warren and human rights lawyer Julian Burnside QC. Hayne later described Waller as an "electric" law lecturer, while Burnside has described him as "the best teacher I have ever seen".

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