Frank Vincent and John Coldrey were driving their cars down Pascoe Vale Road when Vincent took advantage of a red light at the Cross Keys railway crossing to make a business offer to his esteemed colleague.

It was long before the proliferation of mobile phones and so the lawyers used a more rudimentarily method of communication.

"I had two briefs but they were at different courts. I was thinking 'How the hell am I going to juggle these?' when John pulled up next to me," recalls Vincent.

"We each had the windows wound down because that was the only form of airconditioning we could afford," says Coldrey.

The employed barrister yelled to the unemployed one, "Are you in court today?" and when his mate shook his head Vincent shouted above the idling motors, "Well you are now. How would you like to do an assault occasioning at Port Melbourne?"

It was a rhetorical question for a hungry lawyer looking for a paid gig. "He tossed me the brief through the open car window before driving off."

It was the first official use of Windows as a platform in the adversarial system.

Back then they literally lived on the wrong side of the tracks (Oak Park, or as Coldrey remembers – the Paris end of Broadmeadows) from the old school legal networks and couldn't rely on a fraternal leg up.

As they couldn't advertise but needed to get the word out that they were pretty handy in a courtroom stoush they formed a "mutual self promotion pact" where during any speech they would find a way to mention the other in the warmest terms.

More than 40 years on they remain committed to the plan, although Coldrey admits, "I don't think I can remember gaining a single advantage from it."

Justice Coldrey is considered one of the most entertaining speakers in legal circles. This comes from a dry sense of humour backed by a cunning strategy. At dinners he chooses to speak as late as possible because:

A) The audience is well lubricated, which makes them easier to amuse, and:

B) They forget the jokes by the morning, which allows him to recycle them at later functions.

John Coldrey and Frank Vincent have been mates from the 1960s and their careers have followed similar paths through the Criminal Bar to the Supreme Court Bench.

They were two of the first crime barristers to rise to the Supreme Court where they earned reputations as first-class judges. Vincent was on the bench from 1985 to 2009 and Coldrey from 1991 to 2008. They both served on the Adult Parole Board.

They remain active in public life. Coldrey is the Chair of the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine Council while Vincent is reviewing witness protection systems for the Justice Department.

This means Frank has a secure office that requires three separate keys and leaves him feeling a little like "Maxwell Smart, or someone protecting a nuclear facility".

They are living proof that the image of judges as old goats who live on glasses of Tokay and back copies of The Times is a convenient cliche propagated by out of touch media commentators who think Research is a suburb near Eltham.

Coldrey is an Essendon High boy who fell in love with the law while watching Perry Mason on the black and white television. Vincent's father was a wharfie and Waterside Workers Federation union official. His mother, Tess, was a factory worker.

Both are amazed when judges are described as being out of step with community standards.

"We grow up, have kids, play sport and have the same concerns as everyone else. We are part of the community and, just like everyone else, want a safe society," Coldrey says.

Although he does admit that in their early days in the law some judges were perhaps a little sheltered. One County Court Judge was baffled by a reference in a document to a food stuff of which he was not acquainted. "Pizza! what is that?" he asked. He was only placated when a barrister told him it was an Italian version of Welsh Rarebit.

Both are well acquainted with the dark side having spent years defending underworld types, some who proved to be less than overwhelmed by their efforts.

The notorious Jimmy Loughnan (who died in the Jika Jika prison fire in 1987) was keen to make sure Vincent brought his A Game to the bar table when defending him over a series of armed robberies.

"He said if I lost he would have me knocked. I told him if this was the case I would have to return the brief as I was only getting legal aid rates. He then told me to forget about the threat and I duly lost."

Coldrey and Vincent were two of a group of Melbourne barristers who gave up a large chunk of their working lives to represent the downtrodden in the Northern Territory where for the indigenous population justice was often a lottery.

There they shared legal aid accommodation, quickly dubbed as Hepatitis House where they lived on a diet dangerously loaded with cold beer and boiled cabbage.

They were away that often that when Vincent rang the Coldrey home and it was answered by John's wife Karin he heard the daughter in the background ask who was on the phone. Karin replied, "It is the man who lives with your father."

As judges the two had to suppress their own personalities for an off-the-cuff quip could end up as a nasty appeal point.

When one witness described himself as a restaurateur and tennis coach Coldrey had to stop himself from saying "Well they must be big serves in your restaurant."

Vincent says a judge may crack a joke to lighten the load but only a self-deprecating one and never at the expense of anyone else in the court.

"The prime job of a judge is to get the jury to do its job."

Both say judges mask their emotions to appear neutral and unaffected when dealing with the worst humanity has to offer.

Vincent, who defended people in 200 murder trials, freely admits that as a judge there was one that left permanent scars.

It was the Bega trial of Leslie Camilleri, one of two men who tortured and killed NSW schoolgirls Lauren Margaret Barry, 14, and Nichole Emma Collins, 16, in Victoria in 1997.

Co-offender Lindsay Beckett gave a detailed account of the murders in a cold matter-of-fact way. "The court was silent except for this guttural sound from one of the mothers. It was not a cry but something more primal. I can still hear it."

"I just had to sit there and couldn't let anyone see the effects. I had to get everyone through it. It damaged me."

Coldrey says he would shed tears while reading victim impact statements and lay awake wondering whether to sentence the offender to 16 years or 18. In one case where a woman killed her husband after suffering sustained abuse he struggled with his emotions.

"The details of what happened to her were just horrific." He said he was "almost weeping" as he charged the jury. He gave her a suspended sentence for manslaughter - an option that has now been removed from judges.

They fear the tough on crime political campaigns will backfire with judges restricted in sentencing options.

Put simply more prisoners in jail will lead to more ex prisoners on the streets – many who will re-offend.

One-size-fits-all justice cannot work, they say.

"Justice must be individualised. It is not about sentences being heavy or light but being appropriate in all circumstances," Vincent says.

Both remain advocates of the jury system although Vincent warns the reliance on expert forensic witnesses could end up baffling judge and juries alike.

Coldrey says in his time on the bench he had two murder trials where the accused was acquitted when they "were clearly guilty," but none where someone was found guilty when there should have been an acquittal.

Trials have become too complex with some defence lawyers keen to argue every point rather than concentrate on the key issues, they say.

Vincent says barristers who embark on marathon cross examinations and try to contest every issue "are not improving their client's prospects of acquittal".

He says the court process is the start of a social rehabilitation process that lays the platform "to start rebuilding the lives of the victim and the persons who have committed the crime"

"Who knows if you get it right? Do people con you? Only if they are good at it and then you wouldn't know."