The University immediately bestowed on him the title Emeritus Professor. Professor Symes was a long-time member of the Institute of Public Accountants having first joined the Institute of Affiliate Accountants in 1979 and continued as a Fellow of the National Institute of Accountants.
In 2008 he was awarded Honorary Fellow of the IPA for his work particularly on the national disciplinary committee (1988-2008). Over the years of his membership he also contributed as a State Deputy President, a PD presenter and recently as an expert panellist at the 2021 National Conference on the Gold Coast.
Professor Symes was born and raised in Gawler and studied accounting between 1975-79. He was a full-time law undergraduate in the 1980s at Adelaide Law School and a part-time law postgraduate in the 1990s. He worked as an accountant in country hospitals in South Australia and then practised law at Camatta Lempens in Adelaide before becoming a full-time academic in 1993.
Professor Symes taught commercial and corporate law. He was the recipient of the 2005 Vice Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching at Flinders University and more recently was appointed a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law as a person of exceptional distinction in insolvency law. His approach to law teaching was characterised by student empathy, appropriate assessment, and his attempts to create a receptive learning environment for students in both Law and Commerce degrees. Despite teaching content initially perceived by students as lacking in interest, he used techniques such as humour and referencing real-life situations to engage students.
Professor Symes has supervised many doctoral students and while his own doctorate was in the field of corporate insolvency, he supervised students with a variety of commercial and taxations topics, and always with the intention of providing them with opportunities for optimum advancement in their chosen career. His former PhD students now hold academic posts at University of Adelaide, University of Sydney, UTS, ANU and La Trobe, teaching corporate and commercial law, and taxation.
Professor Symes is senior author of the textbook Australian Insolvency Law (now in its 5th edition) and of a companion book on cases and materials for insolvency law (now in its 2nd edition), and co-author of the textbook Business and Corporations Law (now in its 5th edition). He continues as editor of Australian Journal of Corporate Law.
As a researcher Professor Symes focused almost exclusively on insolvency law. He was recently a co-author of collaborative research on a cross-jurisdictional comparison of the use of commercial litigation funding in insolvency in 10 countries and, though now retired, he continues research into a number of areas including litigation funding, liquidators’ duties, environmental insolvencies, the history of insolvency practitioners, Australian theories and influences on insolvency, and cross-border insolvency.
In a recent public release, the Adelaide Law School described Professor Symes as “a wonderful academic mentor, teacher, international researcher, colleague and all round gentleman”.
