For the first time in 125 years of Federation, both of Australia’s top law officers are women.
Dr Ruth Higgins SC will become Australia’s 12th Solicitor-General when her five-year term commences on 8 June 2026 — a milestone appointment that sees one of the nation’s most formidable competition law specialists step into the Commonwealth’s most demanding courtroom brief.
Attorney-General Michelle Rowland announced the appointment this week, describing Dr Higgins as possessing “a prodigious legal mind” and calling the recommendation “about finding the best person for the job.”
From Glasgow to the High Court
Dr Higgins immigrated to Australia 25 years ago and has since built a reputation as what Chambers Asia & Pacific called “an absolute star” in competition law and “absolutely the pre-eminent competition barrister” Chambers and Partners practising today.
Her academic credentials span continents. She obtained her PhD in law from Balliol College, University of Oxford, alongside a Bachelor of Laws with First Class Honours from the University of Glasgow. As she noted at her appointment press conference, she will be “the first Solicitor-General who went to the University of Glasgow” — breaking the traditional pipeline from ANU, Sydney and Melbourne.
A Courtroom Operator Across High-Stakes Litigation
The immediate past President of the NSW Bar Association brings three decades of litigation experience across Australia’s most contested commercial battlegrounds. She recently represented ASIC in high-stakes litigation against Star Entertainment executives Braidwood Times and represented Commonwealth Bank during the banking royal commission The Canberra Times — the kind of pressure-test that prepares counsel for the unique demands of appearing for the Commonwealth.
She has acted successfully for ANZ, TPG, Pacific National and AGL in contested merger proceedings against the ACCC. She appeared in the first two modern criminal cartel prosecutions and has represented clients including Apple, Google, Woolworths and Westpac across regulatory and consumer litigation.
Beyond courtroom work, Dr Higgins is a published legal scholar whose Oxford University Press book The Moral Limits of Law established her as a serious jurisprudential thinker — a rarity at the commercial Bar.
She inherits a suite of politically sensitive challenges, including the constitutional validity of the government’s social media ban for under-16s. The role demands providing independent advice to, and advocacy for, the Commonwealth Government to ensure the lawful and effective exercise of its considerable power.
At her announcement, Dr Higgins struck a characteristically measured tone: “I think the institutions of law matter terribly, and I think the individuals who hold senior positions in them also matter a very great deal. They must always represent those institutions with integrity, independence and excellence.”
The position carries a remuneration package of approximately $880,000 per year, among the highest-paid roles in the federal government, but arguably commensurate with the singular weight it carries.
