There has been no shortage of highly credentialled lawyers sitting around the Equity Trustees board table over the past 130 years, and Richard Searby, QC, who was a Director for 25 years and Chairman from 1980 to 2000, certainly fits that mould.

Richard had an illustrious career at the Bar after returning from Oxford University where he studied the classics and was then admitted to the Inner Temple.

He returned to Australia in 1956, and after a stint as an Associate to Sir Owen Dixon, Chief Justice of Australia, went to the bar and was awarded silk in 1971.

Richard held many board positions, but the one he is probably best remembered for is chairing Rupert Murdoch's News Limited (now known as NewsCorp Australia) empire from 1977 to 1992, with their friendship dating back to their Geelong Grammar days. That period in the chair covered the purchase of the "The Times", the Hitler Diaries saga and the relocation of London-based newspaper infrastructure to Wapping, resulting in a year-long union protest.

Equity Trustees board meetings must have seemed quite tame by comparison.