The Brisbane Times reports
Paul Edwin von Nessen February 23, 1950-April 7, 2020
Paul von Nessen was a leading contributor in legal education at several Australian universities in Victoria and Queensland. He was born to Minnie and Harold in Yokohama, Japan, where Harold had been posted as a lieutenant in the US army.
When the family returned to the US after a period in Korea, Paul was raised in Columbia, South Carolina. On finishing high school, he did an arts degree at Duke University in North Carolina, an honours law degree at the University of South Carolina (1974), and a master’s degree in law at Cambridge University in the UK (1979). Many years later (2004), Paul completed a PhD in comparative law at Monash University.
He moved to Australia in 1980 to take up a position in the Monash law faculty. He left in 1984 and, after a short period at Macquarie University in NSW in 1985, moved to the department of business law in the faculty of economics and commerce, at the University of Melbourne in 1986. This move provided the foundation for Paul’s major contribution as a leader in university departmental administration.
He became the head of the department of business law in 1992 and was active in arranging the merging of that department’s staff and functions into the law faculty in 1994. He became professor and head of the department of business law in the faculty of business at RMIT University in 1994. In 1998, Paul took up the position as McCullough Robertson professor of corporate law at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane. In 2002, he returned to working life in Melbourne as head of the department of business law and taxation at Monash, a position he relinquished in 2006. He continued to work as a professor in that department until 2012.
In these various roles as departmental head Paul’s innate sense of “bonhomie” and kindness were always to the fore. He was a supportive colleague to academic and professional staff and an endless source of encouragement to younger scholars trying to make their way in a sometimes-challenging environment. His quirky sense of humour was often called upon.
Paul’s greatest devotion was to his family, and he was a dedicated husband and father. He had met his wife, Pauline, at a VFL grand final party in 1981 and they were married in 1987. They were a finely matched pair: lawyers, Essendon supporters and wine buffs. Paul’s arrival in Australia had coincided with an emerging appreciation of wine in this country, and he and Pauline shared the belief that wine, in moderation (be that a Napa Valley cabernet or a Barossa shiraz), was an integral part of life and culture. Their love of travel, another of Paul’s great delights, often included vineyard visits, and Paul never failed to arrive for a meal with a bottle in hand, either for immediate consumption with fellow diners or for his host by way of thanks.
Paul and Pauline’s two sons, James and Cal, were born in 1988 and 1989 and together the family enjoyed a rich and vibrant life. Pauline and the boys were often able to accompany Paul on his working vacations (one of Paul’s favourite activities was teaching at the Monash campus in Prato, Italy), and on his frequent trips to visit his family in southern US.
Paul’s other great enthusiasm was sport. He was reportedly a good basketball player in the US (and an avid fan of the Duke Blue Devils) and continued his engagement with basketball with an Old Stars team in Melbourne. However, in Australia, he also found himself confronted with Australian Rules football, cricket and soccer.
This was a good result – the number of sports possibilities had suddenly doubled. Paul was able to keep up with his American sporting passions – US football and baseball included – through the more than 20 sports channels that he was regularly glued to. Australian sports activities he pursued with relish.
For many years in the 1980s and early 1990s he joined in the regular indoor soccer matches played among members of the economics and commerce and law faculties at the University of Melbourne. He also became an Essendon supporter, and for several years he belonged to a University of Melbourne-based club of Essendon members (TYOTB, The Year of the Bomber) and, with James and Cal, regularly attended matches with members and their children.
Perhaps Paul’s greatest sporting challenge, not surprisingly, was cricket. In 1994, he joined with some RMIT colleagues on the RMIT Wanderers India cricket tour. In Hyderabad, the Wanderers were up against some quick bowling on a fast track. Unable to see particularly well, nor really understanding the art associated with the cricket bat (compared with the baseball variety), Paul was nevertheless able to bat the innings out. “Considerable courage” was the remark of a colleague.
Paul’s main fields of legal research were in company law, taxation and comparative law. His contribution in the last of these was particularly path-breaking, enabling him to pay considerable attention to the intersections of American and Australian law, as well as intersections with Asian legal systems. His book The Use of Comparative Law in Australia appeared in 2006. At times, Paul’s wit carried his delight in sport across to this professional aspect of his life: one of his papers was titled “Internationalising the Common Law: If Australia can Play Cricket why can’t the US?”
In addition to his university management, teaching and research activities Paul practised as a consultant to legal firms and public bodies such as the Australian Securities Commission. Many honorary appointments were held, particularly at US universities on his frequent travels to his homeland.
Apart from his friends and colleagues in Australia, his passing was also a blow to similar groups in the US. His long-time membership and contribution to his field in the US was recognised by the past president of the Academy of Legal Studies in Business (US), Lee Reed. In the ALSB News, Paul was acknowledged as “a soft-spoken person who did not wear his accomplishments on his sleeve”. The newsletter also pointed to the valuable connections Paul had developed between the business law fraternity in Australia and its US counterpart.
Paul was a generously spirited, warm, kind-hearted character with a delight in humour and life. He is survived by his immediate family, Pauline, James and Cal, in Australia, and by his sister Peggy and his brother Hal, in the US. Cal was married to Olivia Croagh on March 9, 2020, and to Paul’s great pleasure he was able to attend the family wedding celebration at Mount Warning on March 14.
Struck down with a brain tumour and bravely battling on throughout difficult circumstances over several months, Paul died on April 7. He will be greatly missed by all, and especially by those who liked a good laugh.
The authors were Paul von Nessen’s close friends and former colleagues.
