NED Kelly historian and long-time barrister Trevor Monti will don the silk robe after last week being elevated to Senior Counsel.
Mr Monti has been able to combine his fascination with the outlaw with a love of his legal profession as he represents two branches of the Kelly clan to achieve the burial “Ned would have wanted”.
And the Kelly story may have had a different ending had Ned had a fair trial, says Mr Monti.
In 1980, on the centenary of Kelly’s execution, he wrote an article about Kelly’s trial at the request of the Bar Council.
“I said Ned Kelly did not receive a fair trial and that had he received a fair trial he may never have been convicted. That has caused a lot of other people to examine the trial more closely.”
Also the longest-serving president of Williamstown Football Club, Mr Monti was last week congratulated by CEO Brendan Curry, who credited him for the club’s strong on- and off-field position as he gears up for his 15th season next year.
Mr Monti says the bushranger played 11 games for Williamstown in 1873. Mr Monti became a lawyer in 1973, but started out as a labourer after leaving Shepparton High School. “I lasted about six months then realised there was no future in labouring.”
He says his practice is for working people.
“I’m on the same level as them. I don’t talk down to them. I want them to know I’m in their corner. I want them to know I understand their problems and issues.”
One of his more memorable cases involved a young man sent to Germany for work who, unbeknown to him, was bitten by a tic in the Black Forest.
“He came back to Australia, still as a young man of about 30. He suffered a severe stroke and suffered from severe advanced heart disease and underwent a heart transplant. He developed skin lesions around various parts of his body. The lesions were biopsied and the biopsy disclosed he was suffering from limes disease, one of the consequences of which is to cause severe cardiac disease. The limes disease resulted from the tic bite in the Black Forest about 12 years earlier.”
Mr Monti, who is a ‘no-win no-pay’ barrister with a 98-99 per-cent success rate, won the man compensation and damages, as well as medical expenses and loss of income.
One of Mr Monti’s most notable successes has enabled Ned Kelly to finally rest in peace.
“There were two separate groups of Kelly descendants who were at odds about when, where and how Ned’s remains should be buried,” Mr Monti said.
“I was briefed to appear on behalf of the true Kelly descendants — when I say true, I mean descendants from Ned’s mother and father.
“Ned’s mother remarried after his father died, and so there’s another group of descendants from that line and they couldn’t agree for many months about the circumstances of his burial and funeral. Because I’m a Ned Kelly historian, I was very pleased to achieve a burial service that I know Ned would have wanted.”
