Queens Birthday Honour recipient Justice Carolyn Simpson on her bumpy road to the judiciary

“It might interest you to know that when I left teaching I had a burning ambition to be a journalist, but I couldn’t get a job so someone stuck me in the courts.”

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Never in her wildest dreams did former Supreme Court Justice Carolyn Simpson envisage her legal career would reach the heights it did.

Ms Simpson was admitted to the bar in 1976 with humble ambitions, though went on to become only the second woman to be appointed to the state’s highest court.

“I just wanted to earn a living,” the newly anointed AO said.

During a lengthy career in the judiciary, Ms Simpson made history as one of three female judges to sit in an appeals court for the first time in Australia in 1999.

Justices Carolyn Simpson (left), Margaret Beazley and Virginia Bell, an all-woman bench hearing, hear a case in NSW Court of Criminal Appeal in Sydney for the first time.

But it almost never happened, as the Queen’s Birthday Honour recipient reflects on the path not taken.

In 1970 she was at a crossroads: continue her career as a teacher or find a new purpose in life.

“I didn’t like (teaching) very much and I wasn’t very good at it,” Ms Simpson said.

“It might interest you to know that when I left I had a burning ambition to be a journalist but I couldn’t get a job so someone stuck me in the courts.”

Unlike many of her peers, the former Supreme Court justice had an unusual route to one the top jobs on the bench.

After being appointed a Queen’s Counsel in 1989 Ms Simpson moved to the bench in 1994.

One third of the historic appeals court “female hat-trick” of judges, she now occupies her time as the Commissioner of the NSW Law Reform Commission.

“I am conscious that I have been given this award for doing my job,” she said.

“I am thrilled my work is considered worthy.”