Justice Middleton is a part-time Commissioner of the ALRC and was first appointed on 28 November 2012. His current term expires on 25 December 2022.
Justice Middleton joined the Federal Court of Australia on 31 July 2006. He was appointed Deputy President of the Australian Competition Tribunal effective from 16 February 2009, and presidential member of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal effective from 24 November 2010.
He graduated from the University of Melbourne as Bachelor of Laws (First Class Honours) and from the University of Oxford as Bachelor of Civil Law (First Class Honours). He was the Winter Williams Scholar (University of Oxford (1976)). He was admitted to practise as a barrister and solicitor of the Supreme Court of Victoria in 1976. After serving as Associate to Sir Ninian Stephen, then Justice of the High Court of Australia, he was called to the Bar in 1979 where he practised predominantly in Constitutional and Administrative Law, Resources Law and Commercial Law.
He was appointed one of Her Majesty’s Counsel for the State of Victoria in 1991 and subsequently became Chairman of the Victorian Bar Council.
His extra curial activities include being a former Council Member of The University of Melbourne, a member of The American Law Institute, a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law, Member of the Editorial Board of The Journal of the Intellectual Property Society of Australia and New Zealand, a member of the Australian Centre for International Commercial Arbitration Advisory Board and Judicial Liaison Committee and President of the Oxford Society in Victoria.
He was awarded the Centenary Medal in 2003 for services as a former Chairman, Bar Council, to the community and to education.