Michael Grant QC announced as Territory’s new chief justice

Attorney-General John Elferink has announced the appointment of Solicitor-General Michael Grant QC as the new Chief Justice of the NT Supreme Court

New NT Solicitor-General, Michael Grant QC

Attorney-General John Elferink has announced the appointment of Solicitor-General Michael Grant QC as the new Chief Justice of the NT Supreme Court.

Mr Grant will replace the retiring Chief Justice Trevor Riley, commencing in the position on July 5, 2016.

Solicitor-General Michael Grant QC has been appointed the new Chief Justice of the NT Supreme Court

Mr Grant is the current Solicitor-General for the NT and was appointed to the position in September 2007.

As Solicitor-General, Mr Grant is the Territory’s principal advocate and legal adviser.

In that role, he has represented the Territory in a range of significant cases.

Prior to his appointment as Solicitor-General, Mr Grant practised at the private bar from 1999 until 2007 and was appointed as Queen’s Counsel in 2006.

Mr Elferink said Mr Grant was an out-standing home-grown lawyer with a national reputation. “His presence on the bench will consolidate the already well established reputation of the Supreme Court in the NT,” Mr Elferink said.

“Cabinet made this selection in accordance with a recommendation made by a panel chaired by Brian Ross Martin AO QC, a former Chief Justice of the NT.”

Mr Grant was born in Darwin and spent the first five years of his life in Pine Creek, where his father was a policeman and his mother was a teacher.

He undertook his primary schooling in Darwin and attended boarding school in Sydney.