Solicitor-General for New South Wales (Born East Melbourne 1946)
Michael Sexton has degrees in law from the universities of Melbourne and Virginia. After some years as an academic lawyer and writer, he commenced practice as a barrister in the mid 1980s, taking silk in 1998. He currently holds the position of Solicitor-General for New South Wales. He has been Chairman of the NSW State Rail Authority and a board member of the NSW Public Transport Authority, the NSW State Library, the Sydney Writers’ Festival and the University of Technology. He is the author of a number of legal texts and several books on politics and history including ‘On the Edges of History – a memoir of Law, Books and Politics’.
Michael is descended from Patrick Sexton who arrived in Melbourne in 1852. The origins of the family may have been in Co. Clare. Patrick married Ellen O’Connor and had six children one of whom was John O’Connor Sexton who subsequently married Ellen Mooney in July 1899. John and Ellen had two boys: Cyril Francis Sexton and Gerald Sexton. Cyril (Michael’s father) was a lawyer in the Commonwealth public service and was married to Eileen Dynan.
A full account of the family history can be read in Chapter 2 of Michael’s memoir, ‘On the Edges of History – A Memoir of Law, Books and Politics’, Connor Court Publishing 2015