He remained as the Judge-in-Charge of the TEC List until 1 March 2017, when hebecame a TEC List judge until his retirement from the Supreme Court on 8 May 2018.

Academic Qualifications and Teaching Experience

• Hon. Peter Vickery QC studied law at the University of Melbourne, graduating in 1972.
• He undertook articles at Madden Butler Elder & Graham (now the global law firm - Norton Rose Fulbright) between 1972-1973,and was admitted to practice as a barrister and solicitor in Victoria and the High Court of Australia in 1973.
• He subsequently studied for a Master of Laws degree at Kings College London and graduated from the University of London with an LLM degree conferred in 1975.
• Between 1975 and 1978 he was appointed as a Senior Tutor in the Department of Legal Studies, La Trobe University, Victoria where he founded and taught the subject, Human Rights Law.
• During this period he was one of the founding members of the Fitzroy Legal Service, the first voluntary community legal service in Australia.

Career at the Victorian Bar

• Mr Vickery signed the role of Counsel of the Victorian Bar in 1978, having read in the chambers of Mr. M.E.J. Black (formerly Chief Justice, Federal Court of Australia). He was in continuous practice as a barrister from 1978 and was appointed Queen's Counsel in December 1995.
• In 30 years at the Victorian Bar Mr Vickery developed a wide-ranging practice in trial and appellate jurisdictions, in commercial and administrative law, while focussing on commercial law and engineering and construction law.
• In the course of his practice as a silk, Mr Vickery was briefed in a number of major commercial cases arising from the collapse of the Pyramid Building Society and the property collapse in Victoria,includingPyramid Building Society (in liq) and Others v Farrow Finance Corporation (in liq)and Others, and in the field of engineering and construction, including acting for the State of Tasmania in a long running case arising from construction of the Bass Highway in TasmaniaState of Tasmania v Leighton Constructions Pty Ltd [2005] TASSC 133.
• In another example Mr Vickery represented the Australian Submarine Corporation (a company wholly owned by the Commonwealth of Australia)Australian Submarine Corporation (ASC) v Kockums, in an arbitration conducted in 2006. The arbitration arose from the design and construction of the Australian “Collins Class” submarine. ASC brought the arbitration proceeding against the Swedish company KockumsAB, which operated a shipyard in Malmö, Sweden and was owned by the Swedish defence company, the Saab Group. The arbitrator was a former Federal Court Judge, the late John Lockhart QC.

Judicial Career

• Peter Vickery QC was appointed as a Justice of the Supreme Court of Victoria in 2008. He retired from the Court on 8 May 2018. He established and managed the Technology Engineering and Construction List (the TEC List) and became a Judge of the Commercial Court upon its establishment.
• Creation of the Technology Engineering and Construction List (TEC List), Supreme Court of Victoria
• In mid-2008 Justice Vickery (as he then was) conceived of a project called the “TEC Project” to draw together under one management regime the three strands of related disputes in the areas of technology, engineering and construction. The focus of the TEC Project was to produce a state-of-the-art approach to Technical, Engineering and Construction dispute resolution and case management designed to achieve both practical and efficient working outcomes within a tolerable budget.
• The TEC List commenced operation on 19 June 2009, with Justice Vickery (as he then was) becoming the first Judge-in-Charge, Technology, Engineering and Construction List, or the TEC List as it has come to be known.
• He developed the RedCrest Electronic Case Management System for the Court and initiated a number of procedural reforms to save costs for litigants.

Procedural Reforms

• During 2013 Justice Vickery participated in the Attorney-General’s review of discovery in litigation in Victoria, in the course of which his Honour presented a paper on the subject. This resulted in amendments to the Civil Procedure Act 2010 (Vic.) to include new sections ss 55A – 55C dealing with discovery.
• During 2016 his Honour introduced procedures for the use of predictive Technology Aided Review (TAR) in large document cases. This is now included in Practice Note SC GEN 5 Guidelines for the Use of Technology; and in the same year his Honour introduced procedures for the use of de-duplication technology which is also now included in Practice Note SC GEN 5 Guidelines for the Use of Technology.
• The Supreme Court of Victoria through the work of Justice Vickery became the first court in Australia to order the use of technology-assisted review (TAR) techniques, or predictive coding, to reduce the potentially huge task of discovering documents in civil litigation. The decision in McConnell Dowell v Santam [2017] VSC 640 by Justice Vickery was the first published case in Australia to recognise and adopt the TAR technology. It reflects an increasing trend by jurisdictions overseas to embrace TAR, as a highly efficient and practical means of simplifying the discovery process, particularly in large document cases.

Qualifications in Alternative Dispute Resolution - Arbitration and Mediation

LEADR
Between 25–27 July 2002 Mr Vickery participated in the LEADR (Lawyers Engaged in Alternative Dispute Resolution)mediation course and mediation workshops conducted by John Wade and Laurence Boulle at Bond University, Gold Coast, Australia.

INSTITUTE OF ARBITRATORS
On 28 September 2006 he was elected an Associate Member of the Institute of Arbitrators and Mediators Australia.

FCIArb
On 15 February 2017 Mr Vickery was admitted as a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (UK) (FCIArb) (Member No. 36870).

ACICA
He was admitted as a Fellow of the Australian Centre for International Commercial Arbitration (ACICA) on 24 March 2017.

Post Judicial Career

• Upon retirement from the Supreme Court, he now works as an Arbitrator, court appointed Referee, DRB Panellist, Mediator, ENE Evaluator, and provides Expert Determinations, specialising in Commercial and Technology Engineering and Construction and Intellectual Property disputes.
• His focus in alternative dispute resolution, as it was as a Judge, is to produce a binding outcome in the most efficient manner possible, to minimise cost and delay.
• Patron, Society of Construction Law (Australia)
• In 2009 Justice Vickery (as he then was) was appointed as the founding patron of the Society of Construction law (Australia) (SOCLA), and remains patron of SOCLA to this day.
• SOCLA is an affiliate of the Society of Construction Law (UK) which was founded in the UK in 1983.

Publications

December 2018 (Construction / International Arbitration) Australian Construction Law Newsletter (ACLN) “Process and Evidence in International Construction Arbitration – ‘Tap Root Principles’“ (2018) 183 ACLN 6.
7 August 2017 (Construction) Forward to “Quantification of Delay and Disruption in Construction and Engineering Projects” by Robert Gemmell, Thomson Reuters (Professional) Australia Limited, 2017.
Summer 2015 (Intellectual Property) Victorian Bar News “The Intellectual Property Enterprise Court of England and Wales (with commentary on D’Arcy v Myriad Genetics Inc [2015] HCA 35)” (2015) 158 VBN 60.
10 October 2012 (Case Management) Journal of Judicial Administration. His Honour published an article in the JJA on the subject of management of documents in large volume cases entitled “Managing the paper: Taming the Leviathan” (2012) 22 JJA No. 2. (Also published in “Global Challenges – Shared Solutions”), ed. Dr Donald Charrett (2013).
4 May 2012(Case Management) Forward to “Global challenges, shared solutions” edited by Dr Donald Charrett, comprising papers delivered at the Fourth International Construction Law Conference (Society of Construction Law Australia, Melbourne), including the published paper by Peter Vickery “Managing the paper - taming the leviathan”, Sydney NSW Society of Construction Law (Australia), [2013].
Spring 2009 (Technology, Engineering & Construction) Victorian Bar News “Technology Engineering and Construction List” (2009) 147 VBN 11.