In 1926, Dixon was briefly made an Acting Judge of the Supreme Court of Victoria, and although he was considered to be an excellent judge, he did not enjoy the experience. In 1929, Dixon was appointed to the bench of the High Court, on the recommendation of his friend John Latham, who was then the Commonwealth Attorney-General. During his time on the bench, Dixon also wrote around 18% of the judgments attributed to his colleague, Sir George Rich and 4% of the judgments attributed to Sir Edward McTiernan. (The propriety of one judge writing a judgment under the name of another has never been determined.) Dixon rapidly established himself as a dominant intellectual force on the High Court bench, and many of his judgments from the 1930s and 1940s are still regarded as classic statements of the common law. Examples are "McDonald v Dennys Lascelles Ltd" (contract terms), "Brunker v Perpetual Trustee Company Ltd" (gifts, property), "Yerkey v Jones" (Equity), and "Penfolds Wines v Elliott" (personal property torts). Dixon also showed that behind his formidable command of legal principle he had a sense of fairness, such as in his joint judgment in "Tuckiar v The King", where the Court quashed the murder conviction of an aboriginal man who had not been given a fair trial.