Max Basheer, longest serving solicitor in Australia, honoured for key South Australia role as football president

Australia's longest-serving solicitor Max Basheer rose to national prominence as South Austraian National Football Leaue president for 25 years, honoured in the Australian Football League hall of fame in 2005 (at left) and with a grandstand named after him at Adelaide Oval. Bottom right: Basheer (seated, centre) was chairman of the first interim Adelaide Football Club board with –Back row: Ed Betro, Bob Hammond, Bill Sanders, Adrian Sutter, Rick Allert. Also seated: Leigh Whicker and Bob Lee.
Images courtesy Australian Football League and South Australian National Football League

Max Basheer was nationally recognised as an Australian football administrator but his well-rounded legal career that ended in 2019 was distinguished by him being, over 68 years, the nation’s longest-serving solicitor.

Born in 1927 to a Lebanese immigrant family who became prominent in the South Australian hotel business and in Australian rules football clubs, Basheer attended Adelaide’s Prince Alfred College where he started playing Australian football. It was during that time, reading The Advertiser newspaper’s detailed court reports, that he was set on becoming a lawyer – against his parents’ wish for him to do medicine.

By the early 1950s, Basheer was representing the state at amateur football level while playing for Adelaide University. He was denied a South Australian National Football League career when the North Adelaide club refused to clear him to play with Sturt club.

Also in 1951, Basheer was admitted to the bar of South Australia after graduating from Adelaide University. From 1954, Basheer was a partner and then senior partner (1966–92) with the law firm Povey Waterhouse & Basheer, where Elliot Johnston was a mentor. In 1992, Basheer became a partner with Reilly Basheer Downs and Humphries and later worked as senior consultant with DBH (Duncan Basheer Hannon) Lawyers until he retired. In Basheer’s earlier career, he represented offenders in the police court, local court and supreme court. He was junior counsel to high-profile barrister Leo Travers QC in murder trials – both ending in acquittals.

Basheer also spent time in the often-depressing area of family law before the 1966 turning point when he was briefed by several football clubs and other businesses to represent them in the historic royal commission into South Australia’s liquor licensing laws. The inquiry led to ending the so-called six o’clock swill and many new licensed premises, such as football club bars, motels and clubs. Basheer practised almost exclusively from then as the “liquor licensing encyclopedia”.

In 1954, Basheer combined law practice and football as the South Australia Amateur Football League tribunal commissioner and, from 1962, five years as South Australian National Football League (SANFL) tribunal commissioner (taking over from newly appointed supreme court judge Vivian Millhouse) adjudicating then punishing on-field incidents.

Basheer went on to hold several SANFL key roles, peaking with a record 25 years as president until he retired 2003. As president, he oversaw:
        * building Football Park stadium at West Lakes and having its lights installed – after a six-year fight involving a royal commission;
        * South Australia's Adelaide and Port Adelaide clubs joining the Australian Football League.

Max Basheer Reserve, formerly next to Football Park, and a stand at Adelaide Oval were named after him. He became a  member of the Order of Australia for services to Australian Football in 1988 and was inducted into both the SANFL and Australian Football Hall of Fame (the first South Australian) in 2005.

 Basheer also considered retiring from the law in 2003 but reconsidered after wife Elaine died: “I didn’t want to stay home in an empty house. I was used to having people around me and being with people.” But he lamented that the law “bears no resemblance’’ to when he entered the field 68 years before: “There was more loyalty, more camaraderie and senior members of the profession used to go out of their way to help the juniors and give them advice and encourage you to seek their help. Sadly, that does not happen today.’’