He was one of five children of Herman and Elizabeth Isaacs, Dutch Jews from "impoverished families" who had arrived in England in the 1890s and worked as domestic servants.
[2] In 1948 Isaacs appeared for Jock Garden in the royal commission chaired by G. C. Ligertwood into the New Guinea timber scandal.
Garden, a former federal MP and convicted fraudster, had alleged corruption on the part of government minister Eddie Ward.
[3][4] Ward subsequently reported Isaacs to the bar council for misprofessional conduct, with an investigation clearing him of any wrongdoing.
[7] In 1979, Premier Neville Wran appointed Isaacs to lead an inquiry into logging at Terania Creek.