Draft:David Wicks (judge)
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Comment: Fails WP:ANYBIO, requires significant coverage about the individual in multiple independent reliable secondary sources. Without references or sources the majority of the article is original research. Dan arndt (talk) 08:30, 22 July 2025 (UTC)
 | This is a draft article. It is a work in progress open to editing by anyone. Please ensure core content policies are met before publishing it as a live Wikipedia article. Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL Last edited by Dan arndt (talk | contribs) 6 days ago. (Update)
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David Wicks (18 February 1939-16 February 2012) was a judge of the Supreme Court of South Australia.
Early and personal life
[edit]Wicks grew up on the family property at Highbury East, son of a nurseryman, Frank and his wife Mitta. He attended Prince Alfred College and won a Commonwealth Scholarship. He was considering a career as a teacher when one of his school masters encouraged him to consider a degree in law.
He entered the Adelaide Law School in an era when its annual intake was less than twenty students. Wicks met Graham Prior, another future judge of the Supreme Court of South Australia, at a law student welcoming party in 1956, and the two were to remain close friends for 50 years. As a university student, Wicks sat on the Student Representative Council.
Wicks met his wife Orietta, a young doctor, at the engagement party of Gay Millhouse and Richard Gardner. They had two children, Christine and Andrew, and five grandchildren.
Career
[edit]After graduating from Adelaide Law School, Wicks worked as an articled clerk with solicitor Tony Abbott, and joined the firm then known as Baker, McEwin, Ligertwood & Millhouse (now MinterEllison) where he remained for 27 years.
He then began working as a barrister, and started a new set of barristers chambers known as Divett Chambers. He was head of Divett Chambers for five years.
In the early 1990s, he was senior counsel assisting the Royal Commission into the Commercial Activities of the Western Australian Government, better known as WA Inc. He was appointed Queens Counsel in both SA and in WA.
In SA, after the State Bank collapse, Wicks led a team of lawyers in the corporatisation of the State Bank and its subsequent sale. Later he did the same for the sale of other government entities, including SGIC, Austrust, and the Pipelines Authority.
Wicks was also a member of the Law Reform Committee of SA for almost a decade.
While still working as a barrister, Wicks succeeded Neil McEwin as chair of Argo Investments Ltd. Wicks was also chairman of directors of a number of other well known public companies, including ANZ Executors and Trustees Limited and its predecessors.
In 1998, he was appointed a judge of the Supreme Court of South Australia. In 2003, Wicks was forced to resign from his position as judge because of the extreme onset of Parkinson's disease.