Walking the talk

IT’S a long way from Marble Bar to the Minter Ellison offices on the 50th floor of Central Park, especially when your route takes you via Johannesburg, London and Sydney.

But the path from rock kicking to the law, with a dabble in politics along the way, is exactly the journey taken by Perth lawyer, Neil Fearis.

One of Perth’s best-known resources lawyers, Mr Fearis has worn a variety of hats during the past two decades, including prospective parliamentarian and staunch anti-republican.

Now special counsel for national law firm Minter Ellison, the UK-born son of an Ulsterman’s trek to the top rungs of Australia’s legal fraternity could have taken him in an entirely different direction.

Quitting the comfort of family life in Kent after finishing school, he packed his swag and trekked overland to the harsh WA outback at the height of the nickel boom.

“I saw Australia as the last great frontier,” he says. “In 1969, I was going through what I’d call my Cecil Rhodes ‘boys-own’ phase. I was 18, I had no tertiary qualifications at all, and I went from the domesticity of the English home counties to Marble Bar in the space of about six weeks.

“As you can imagine it was a bit of a shock to the system.”

After three years he says were probably the most educational of his life, during which time he worked as a field assistant with miner Anglo American in the Pilbara, and two more years with Anglo in southern Africa, Mr Fearis returned to the UK to “get myself educated”.

Qualifying in law at London University, he spent two years at a big London law firm before returning to Perth in 1981, finding that a mining background was a perfect fit for a lawyer in WA.

Mr Fearis spent three years with Freehills before moving to Sydney to join Dawson Waldron, now Blake Dawson, where he was a partner for more than a decade.

He came back to Perth in 1989 to set up the firm’s WA office before “retiring” in 1999 and teaming with a small group of other prominent Perth lawyers to establish Fearis Salter Power Shervington. The aim was to establish a more personal and nimble legal practice that better met the needs of the smaller end of the mining sector.

Mr Fearis says he had also wearied of big firm culture where partners had typically become little more than: “Worker shareholders in a giant legal services factory which has one product – six minute units of time”.

Six years later, Mr Fearis made another U-turn, seeking last minute Liberal pre-selection for the blue-ribbon seat of Nedlands in 2001 following the retirement of defeated premier Richard Court.

“It was just a dipping of my toe in the water without any real prospect of success,” he recalls. “As you can imagine, there was a Melbourne Cup field for that seat and I’d only been a member of the party for three months.”

Mr Fearis chuckles at the irony that the ultimate winner was Sue Walker, who later defected from the party and sat as an independent until losing the seat in 2008.

Three years later, he made a more organised bid for pre-selection for the seat of South Perth but ultimately lost to popular former sports journalist John McGrath.

However, it was Mr Fearis’ third attempt at state parliament that made headlines, running against premier Geoff Gallop as the Liberal candidate for the Labor stronghold of Victoria Park in 2005.

Though unable to pull off a victory against the premier, Mr Fearis says he was warmed by the friendly reception he received as he knocked on more than 3,000 doors in eight weeks.

“I was probably only abused twice,” he laughs.

A spin-off from that has been the daily sight of Mr Fearis pounding the pavements of the western suburbs on his morning five-kilometre walk.

“That’s where I think my deep thoughts … and I do it wherever I am in the world,” he says.

Though he would still consider another shot at parliament should the right opportunity arise, Mr Fearis concedes he is “probably getting a bit old”.

He also laughingly admits to a touch of hubris in his political ambitions.

“I suppose I’m conceited enough to think I could actually make some contribution,” he says. “Australia has been very good to me and I’ve had a successful career in business … so I can afford to devote myself to good works.”

Mr Fearis has also long been an active player in Australia’s republican debate. Chairman of the WA branch of Australians for Constitutional Monarchy, he was sparked into action during the 1999 referendum on whether Australia should become a republic.

“I’m very careful to describe myself as a constitutional monarchist, with the emphasis on constitutional – I’m not a royalist,” he says. “Quirky as it is, and hard for foreigners to understand … the system works, and we should hasten very, very slowly to change it.”

In addition to his current role as special counsel with Minter Ellison, Mr Fearis has expanded on his ties to the resources sector by joining the boards of emerging WA resources companies Perseus Mining, Carnarvon Petroleum and Magma Metal.

It is an avenue he sees as potentially opening a new chapter in his already expansive career.

And with three sons all now having finished schooling, he says he and his wife are now portable enough to indulge in another love – travelling – and possibly even include some form of overseas aid work.

“Once I’ve freed myself of my professional commitments, that’s certainly something I’d be interested in doing,” Mr Fearis says. “In your business life, you acquire a lot of generic management skills which could be very useful to somebody, say, setting up a water treatment plant in Zambia.”

So maybe Lusaka could soon be ringing with the sound of a Perth lawyer pounding the pavement in the early morning.

You walk five kilometres before work as part of your daily ritual. Why?

It’s about the only exercise I get.

After three stabs at parliament, are you still interested in entering politics?

I’m getting a bit old now, but if the right opportunity presents itself, yes.

Looking beyond your business life, what else is on your list of things to do?

I’ve still got a bit of travelling I’d like to do – I’ve got my bucket list which is only half completed. Earlier this year I went to Antarctica, which was a long-time dream. And if an opportunity arose to serve in a public capacity, whether that’s in politics or perhaps the not-for-profit sector, I’m certainly very happy to look at that. One thing I have been thinking about is doing some overseas aid work … so I’ve still got a bit of adventure left in me, I think.