Recently appointed Children's Court Magistrate Peter Dotchin

On a typically grey Melbourne morning back in May, Peter Dotchin stood in the foyer of The Children’s Court of Victoria writing his name next to each client he was representing that day. “The father: Mr Dotchin, the mother: Mr Dotchin,” he scrawled, until a phone call interrupted him.

“Yep,” Dotchin answered.

“It’s the Melbourne Magistrates Court calling Peter,” the secretary said from the other end of the line. “We’re got two of your clients locked up downstairs, can you organise legal representation for them? They’ve been locked up overnight.”

“Yes, that’s fine,” he said with a sigh before hanging up.

“Great, my day has just gone pear shaped,” said Dotchin to himself, as he resumed sorting through the day’s cases. But just as his biro hit the paper his mobile rang for a second time.

“Hi Peter, its Broadmeadows Magistrates Count calling here. Two of your clients are downstairs, can you arrange representation?” said the secretary from Broadmeadows.

“Oh God, that’s four people, this is going to take me forever!” thought Dotchin. “Today’s just shit all of a sudden”.

The phone rings. Again.

“Yes?!” He didn’t bother restraining himself this time. “It’s the Department for Justice,” a clerk said down the line. “Would you like an interview for the position of Magistrate on Monday?”

“Yeah, that’d be okay,” said Dotchin, as a smile broke his face.

After ten years working with the Victoria Legal Aid Commission, and 14 years in private practice as a solicitor advocate, Dotchin decided the six-day weeks and tolls of running Dotchin & Co were adding up. So with the best referees he could muster, he submitted his application at the beginning of the year.

But he didn’t get an interview. “I had the strongest group of referees you could imagine for the position. Couldn’t get stronger,” he said. But after enquiring to no avail, he forgot all about it until a grey morning in May, when the last thing he wanted was another phone call.

After a month of Government-imposed silence, Deputy Premier and Attorney-General Rob Hulls publicly appointed Dotchin to the Magistrate’s Court of Victoria on the 23 June. In the interim, Dotchin offered his practice to his business partner, Caroline Tan, “for an absolute pittance” said Dotchin, so she would have no choice but to accept.

Retelling the story back in his office buried deep within the Children’s Court building, he spoke with the comfort of someone used to their humour being appreciated. Switching with ease between accents, his stories were told by different characters he assumed along the way; from an Asian man with broken English who attempted to withdraw $30,000 cash from the account of ‘Christopher Ryan’, to 14-year-old boys playing up in court and then wondering why the judge had them locked up. It’s easy to see why he’s so well liked by colleagues, clients and friends alike.

When discussing what effect his appointment to the bench would have on his practice, he was adamant that neither of his two staff members would be left without a job come the beginning of his residency in June. It appears to have been a mutual relationship. Dotchin’s 60-year-old secretary, Paula Hammill, paused to give deserved thought to how she could best describe Dotchin, someone she evidently held in high regard. “Working for Peter was more like working for a friend, rather than a boss. He’s the best person I’ve ever worked for.” Still not satisfied with her response, she added, “His clients also loved him.”

Cherhyll Morgan, who worked with Dotchin as a fellow VLA advocate duty lawyer at Broadmeadows Children’s Court and the former Prahran Magistrates Court, echoed Hammill’s carefully chosen words. “Everybody knew him and everybody liked him,” she said. “He always wore a great big smile.”

It’s perhaps his cheeriness and lack of pretence that sets him apart from other Magistrates. “Sometimes when people go to the bench their whole persona seems to change. I think there can be a dullness and a dourness to these changes,” said Dotchin, when reflecting on his approach to the role. “People are appointed because of who they were, so why the need for change?”

So many years of exposure to matters of the Children’s and Family Court’s have hardened his heart. Clients sometimes question why he isn't shocked by their stories of hardship, leaving him to assure them he has to be objective to help them. Each case needs a clinical approach, he tells them, because when emotions become involved, reason takes a backseat. But just sometimes, emotions can’t be held in check.

“I’m pretty enured to all of this sort of stuff. I don’t get terribly emotional,” said Dotchin. Often it’s not the toughness of the decisions he now has to make, but the poignancy and human tragedies that linger until the silence of the courtroom is broken once again.

But from many accounts it appears he has slipped seamlessly into the role. “He has taken to the Children’s Court like a duck to water,” said fellow Magistrate Fiona Stewart. “The way I’ve worked in the past is more suited to the hurly-burley, the cut and the thrust of the Magistrates Court,” said Dotchin, “And I think it will take me out.”

Success for Peter Dotchin appears to be underpinned by a vigorous work ethic and a naturally personable nature. And a few day’s that suddenly go pear-shaped.