Richard McHugh is a Sydney silk from a distiguishged legal and political family. He did his masters at Yale and worked for a time at a Wall Street law shop ... He used to appear regularly in the defamation courts, but has shifted his focus to commercial law, most recently appearing for Ginia Rinehart in the big family trust stoush ... A keen photographer he has turned his attention to writing ... Charlie Anderson's General Theory of Lying, published by Penguin, is his first novel ... Here he is, on Justinian's couch
McHugh: not enough room for all the regretsDescribe yourself in three words.
Beyond my control.
What are you currently reading?
Steve Toltz's "Quicksand" and (since 2012) David Foster Wallace's "Infinite Jest".
What's your favourite film?
Apocalypse Now.
Who has been the most influential person in your life, and why?
My mother. I live in her shadow. Every day I struggle to get out from under it.
What is your favourite piece of music?
What is in your refrigerator?
Cream and full cream milk for making ice cream. Two rolls of Verichrome Pan 120 black and white film, expired in 2002.
What is your favourite website?
If you could change your past, what part of it would you change?
You don't have the space to accommodate my regrets.
What is your guiltiest pleasure?
Why did you want to be a lawyer?
That's the wrong question. I was born to be a lawyer.
What other occupation would you have liked to pursue?
Member for Wentworth, or starting centre for the Los Angeles Lakers. It would have been nice to combine them.
If you were on death row, what would be your request for your last meal?
Chicken schnitzel.
What is Charlie Anderson's General Theory of Lying telling us?
That the professional class is more entertaining than we are given credit for.
From where did you draw the inspiration for the novel?
The basic package - a highly-educated ever-so-slightly-narcissistic professional couple devoted to their children - is everywhere I look.
If you were a foodstuff, what would you be?
Dark chocolate. There's only so much you can take.
What human quality do you most distrust?
Vanity.
What would you change about Australia?
Its location. I would move it 12,000 kilometres closer to Rome.
Whom or what do you consider overrated?
Judicial case management.
What would your epitaph say?
"It might have gone better if he'd tried harder."
What comes into your mind when you shut your eyes and think of the word "law"?
A tax invoice.