Brennan Justice Talks 2021 Pursuing a Legal Career in Social Justice

00:00

Thank you Crystal uh so firstly good evening and  welcome everyone to our seventh and final event  

00:10

in the Brennan Justice Talk Series and tonight  we're focusing on pursuing a legal career in  

00:17

social justice my name is Dr Elise Methvan and  i am zooming in this evening from wengel country  

00:26

and i am one of the co-directors of the Brennan  Program uh so the Brennan and Justice and  

00:31

Leadership Program and i am joined here by a few  members of our Brennan team so of course uh you  

00:38

will know one of my fellow co-directors from the  UTSLSS Georgina Hedge and also Crystal McLaughlin  

00:47

our Brennan administrator and also i'm joined  this evening by our Dean Lesley Hitchens and  

00:56

most importantly for this evening our special  guests and panelists this evening who are  

01:02

Alison Whitaker, Thalia Anthony and Zaahir  Edries and we'll be hearing a bit more about  

01:08

them shortly but before we do i would also like  to say that we're very fortunate this evening  

01:17

to be joined by uts elder in residence  Auntie Glendra Stubbs who will do the  

01:23

acknowledgement of country for us so thank  you so much Glendra oh thank you Elise

01:32

um can you see me we can see and hear you oh okay  thank you i'm thinking i've only got that funky  

01:41

picture there so great thank you um yala mandu  marang galindara um i i'd like to acknowledge that  

01:49

i'm on the land of the Darug and Gandangara people  and say thanks for for me living a lifetime here  

01:56

uts is part of um Gadigal and Eora Nation and so  i pay respects to the Gadigal people of the Eora  

02:05

Nation and say thanks for allowing uts to be on on  their land the university of technology is built  

02:13

where it's built as we share our knowledge  learning and research practice within  

02:19

this university may we pay respects to the  knowledge embedded forever within our culture  

02:26

um i also like to pay respects to elders  past present and our emerging elders and  

02:33

say um thanks for for um the way they've looked  after us and their struggles that they've had  

02:41

also present elders and and ones who are in the  young ones who are proud to be the emerging elders  

02:49

i also want to say thanks to our  non-indigenous brothers and sisters who  

02:54

walk with us on this journey for social  justice as some of you might know  

03:02

i do the big stint with the royal commission into  um um institutional child abuse and what became  

03:10

very apparent to me was that um that aboriginal  people have to have to learn to trust lawyers  

03:19

because the they'd only been in their lives for  when they're in trouble with the law or when child  

03:26

protection was involved but i need to say that you  know this social justice warriors that are lawyers  

03:33

now are are earning that trust and and now it's  like you know they're they're um they're embracing  

03:42

embracing lawyers you know there and you know he's  doing a wonderful job an absolute wonderful job  

03:51

and and you know i said the other  day to the magistrates when i was  

03:54

doing some training with him the lawyers  that are coming through that have learned  

04:01

about our trauma and our past are social justice  warriors so don't any of you forget that you are  

04:08

social justice warriors and it's the hardest to  engage people in australia we are engaging with  

04:16

you guys and you know i'd like to say you know and  including in my friend list Thalia and Allison so

04:26

big hugs to yourself and keep up  the good work we need yous guys

04:35

thank you so much auntie glendra and i think  they're really inspiring words for students  

04:40

and also clearly remind us of the responsibility  we have as lawyers and future lawyers and legal  

04:49

scholars as well so thank you for that so tonight  we have the unique pleasure of being connected  

04:58

uh with uts law students across multiple years  all passionate about the topic of social justice  

05:06

so i'm going to as always lay out a few  zoom housekeeping rules for this evening  

05:12

so this zoom event is being recorded for  teaching and learning and research purposes  

05:18

only key speakers and those that asking  questions in the discussion will come  

05:23

up in the zoom you should have the ability to  hide and show your camera as well as mute and  

05:30

unmute your microphone when you are not speaking  please make sure you put your microphone on mute  

05:39

if you find the event is freezing uh due to  your bandwidth you might want to turn your  

05:45

camera off just to make sure that it works  and free up that bandwidth and also tonight  

05:52

we expect quite a lot of the bremen community to  tune in and we'd love to see your lovely faces  

05:59

so if you can turn on your cameras wonderful  if not we understand that as well uh so  

06:06

especially if you're asking a question we'd  love to see your face but we also understand if  

06:11

we can't for whatever reason uh and lastly a  very important request for current students  

06:17

make sure that you claim your five roj points uh  by putting your full name now in the chat box uh  

06:28

so just note that you can use that chat  box also for asking questions this evening  

06:36

now with all that house keeping settled i would  love to introduce you to our distinguished guests  

06:42

and panel members some of whom i'm sure you'll  be familiar with so firstly we have gumroad poet  

06:50

lawyer and senior researcher at jambana indigenous  house of learning at uts alison whitaker whose  

06:58

work draws attention to the systemic failings and  racism of the australian criminal justice system  

07:05

and contributes to our knowledge around  aboriginal deaths in custody so welcome allison  

07:14

secondly we have lawyer and general counsel at  get up zahir idris uh and as i he said also a long  

07:21

term friend of mine who i went through law school  with and zahir is executive member of and former  

07:27

president of the muslim legal network whose work  centers around advocating for social justice  

07:35

and inclusion and last but not least many of  you will know legal academic professor dalia  

07:43

anthony whose research expertise in criminal law  and indigenous peoples and the law has informed  

07:49

policy and debates in relation to systemic change  and seeking systemic change and remedies for  

07:55

wrongs inflicted on indigenous communities so  welcome also to balia all right so i will now

08:07

stop sharing the screen and i will ask  the first question for this evening  

08:13

which is for both alison enza here and perhaps  alison would like to answer this one first  

08:20

so you are both uts law graduates can you  tell us a bit about your career trajectory  

08:26

after you graduated from uts law and how do you  use your law degree in your current work thanks  

08:36

um so yeah yeah everybody i'm alison whitaker  i'm a gomroy woman i just want to acknowledge  

08:40

before we get any further that i'm here on  gargoyle mongol country i want to take the  

08:44

chance to acknowledge their elders and ancestors  and their continued sovereignty over this place  

08:50

um i was very pleased and honoured to graduate  from uts um relatively recently so my trajectory  

08:58

is very short um so i graduated in in 2016 um and  it was this kind of yeah momentous occasion at  

09:06

times have been i want to encourage anybody who's  here i've been in your shoes and at times it does  

09:11

seem insurmountable um and those were in pretty  ordinary times i accept that most of you here are  

09:17

studying during really extraordinary times and  i just want to urge you on um as much as i can  

09:23

um you do get to the end eventually um after i  graduated i went straight to to do a graduate  

09:31

certificate in legal practice and got about  halfway through that before i disappeared to  

09:35

the other side of the world to turtle island north  america where i went on to do some some further  

09:40

study um on a fulbright scholarship which is where  most of the research that i've done to date on  

09:48

first nations deaths in custody and how they track  um through uh review systems on this continent  

09:55

that's um effectively where that research  was cultivated um having got a little bit of  

10:01

space from just reacting in the day-to-day  um but in that inter-intervening period  

10:07

i was working as a researcher i was really really  lucky to have the the mentorship of thalia who  

10:14

i'm sure is going to be very humble about her  role in this but was one of the first people to  

10:20

introduce me to the idea of scholarship in  particular as a vehicle for social change  

10:24

and legal scholarship in particular is having a  responsibility to the community that it purports  

10:30

to serve um so i want to thank you you'll be very  remiss of me to not actually mention that valiant  

10:36

i've got you here on the call um yeah and from  there i returned i'm now working at the jumbara  

10:43

institute clearly uts has had a pull on me so you  can go very far with a law degree from uts or you  

10:49

can of course just hang around as much as you like  uh it's really up to you um but the the work that  

10:56

i do at the jumblana institute um is like many  jobs estimates that are facing our generation  

11:03

or graduates from law school really quite diffuse  um having kind of a mixed campaigning role a mixed  

11:10

advisory role um that's essentially just about  making sure first nations communities are heard um  

11:17

as well as bringing um their legal interests onto  a political agenda a campaign agenda um as well as  

11:24

to to formal courts um especially in the coroner's  court which is where my specialty currently lies  

11:30

um so the career trajectory has been short diffuse  um and has landed me right back in the tower  

11:36

um i'm sure he has maybe a more  wide-ranging experience than i have

11:44

thanks thank you alison so much enzo here  would you like to share a bit about your  

11:49

career trajectory after graduating from uts law  yeah sure thanks um i i just want to like uh the  

11:58

speaker before me just acknowledged that i'm i'm  diving in from stolen land i'm on the land of  

12:02

the ghetto people here in sydney um and for me i  often do this because it's really important that i  

12:08

a lot of my social justice context comes from  i'm growing up in perth and i was born in south  

12:15

africa as well so i grew up on long island  and i made friends with elders there very  

12:22

early because that was a connection that i as an  african migrant found myself making really early  

12:28

on and i'm humbled to be here with you deadly  people so thanks for having me um very quickly  

12:35

in terms of my career trajectory it's probably  important to know that i came to uts as a postgrad  

12:42

and as a postgrad i came because it was important  to me that the university and this is not what i'm  

12:48

saying just because the danish on here um it was  a really accommodating place for me i came in i  

12:56

moved to sydney by myself so being able to study  law in the evenings um do what was then called  

13:01

the masters of law and legal practice it's since  been converted to the jd um was really important  

13:07

for me and it sort of set um my path to doing  this social justice work because the i guess the

13:18

subjects that i was able to do really helped me  uh fine-tune what i wanted to do in the future  

13:23

uh that being said my career trajectory is bizarre  and strange um probably out of necessity um  

13:29

i've been an investigator uh since graduating um  i've worked on royal commissions i have worked  

13:37

in private practice um at top tier law firms i've  worked in specialist law firms and i found myself  

13:43

now at getup as is general counsel that's  a very short version and i might tell you a  

13:49

couple of interesting bits which you students  might find entertaining or think i'm mad but  

13:57

either way i'm going to tell you anyway i  graduated about in august i think it was um  

14:04

in 2008 i um was finishing off an investigative  role um which i think is quite important because  

14:10

the skills you learn um were really quite helpful  for me to be a government investigator i was  

14:15

a workplace conduct investigator at railcorp i  did work closely with uh believe it or not with  

14:21

new south wales icac quite topical right now and  that was a really interesting start to my career  

14:28

i then like many graduates moved into a graduate  type program um for those of you old enough to  

14:34

know um 2008 was a difficult year for graduates  of any degree we had this little thing called  

14:41

the global financial crisis which meant graduate  positions went from 40 at pwc for example to three  

14:51

so interestingly i had to think about how i  would engage in a career that i necessarily  

14:58

may have thought like many people um you want  to do you know my special i did my masters of  

15:04

one league practice in international law which was  really interesting but also there aren't many jobs  

15:10

for international human rights lawyers  in australia believe it or not um that  

15:14

being said it doesn't mean you can't do the  work what i mean by that was outside of my  

15:20

job i didn't want to sit on my laurels and  think um how do i get a job during um a global  

15:28

recession um and a bunch of my colleagues started  what elise alleged to at the beginning when she  

15:33

introduced me was the muslim legal network of  new south wales um at the time we were combating  

15:41

some really difficult counterterrorism  legislation around the country we formed this  

15:47

i guess a supportive network which quickly evolved  into an advocacy space my legal practice uh helped  

15:55

work in that campaign space which we'll probably  talk about a little bit later on um that quickly  

16:00

progressed into and was able to sharpen some  of my skills as a graduate lawyer i moved  

16:06

through private practice for maybe about a decade  moved into um in-house work which i also found  

16:12

really satisfying um and it allowed me to think  about different things and apply my legal brain  

16:18

different ways um also all of that uh ngo type  work is ultimately what got me to get up and so  

16:28

if you're a lawyer who works in this space  you're often touted as a troublemaker or  

16:32

a um i'd like to think when more people who  like to stir up the status quo which i think is  

16:38

really important in our profession and in our  space because if we don't nothing changes um  

16:45

and yeah so for the last three years i  found myself living in this little space  

16:49

admiring the work of uh phthalia and allison and  seeing them speak at places like you know red  

16:54

law and um just really fascinating about what we  can do with the law degree um in this day and age  

17:05

thanks lise thanks i hear obviously we'll have  a lot of questions on those issues later i'd  

17:11

i'd also um now like to ask thalia can you  explain why you decided to pursue a career  

17:19

as a legal academic and what led you to focus your  research on criminal justice and uh first nations  

17:26

people and the law thanks elise um and i'd also  like to acknowledge that I'm on unceded Wangal

17:35

land of the Eora Nation um and especially thank the  amazing auntie glendra for her acknowledgement  

17:43

as well um so and i just also have to put it out  there that although allison claims not to have  

17:50

moved far from the tower she's constantly on  the front line um and connected with community  

17:57

and um that's a testament to allison his work  sorry as well as the work of um john banner at uts  

18:05

um so to answer your question elise and and  probably the the second part first my journal  

18:12

my my journey to becoming a legal academic  sorry um is not really orthodox i am i studied  

18:19

arts law and then halfway through um put my  law degree on hold to do my phd in history  

18:27

and that was on colonial histories in the northern  territory especially for cattle station workers  

18:33

and part of that was looking at the role of  legislation and case law in that process of  

18:40

colonization so i came to the law being really  conscious of historical legacies in oppressing  

18:47

first nations people um but i also and just to  give away my age um grew up in the 1980s when  

18:56

racist policing and deaths in custody were  becoming national issues and i was you know  

19:02

as a child part of the protests at the time and  really saw that injustice and when i studied law  

19:09

it was about you know identifying the injustice  but also trying to work out how the law can be  

19:17

a weapon for accountability um and for change  and it's his constant i guess dialectic between  

19:24

law enforcing as you say they hear the  status quo but also pushing back on it  

19:30

um in terms of my motivation for being a  law academic it was really to be a lecturer  

19:37

to teach students um so i initially did this in  history and then in law and today a lot of the  

19:43

work i do as i see it in justice is really in the  classroom um and you know we're jury women like  

19:52

laura lyons and and annie brown and penrith um  constantly remind me about knowledge being power  

20:00

um so i don't i mean obviously we do social  justice advocacy in the community but  

20:06

i never underestimate um that day-to-day  engagement with students um and and i think you  

20:14

know having started as a lecturer and continually  being grateful for that opportunity i also got to  

20:20

see the social justice work of my colleagues um  and and it's why in 2010 i came to uts because of  

20:28

the work jambana and larissa bera were doing  against the northern territory intervention  

20:34

and um centers like anti-slavery were doing in  in the law faculty and to see how you could be  

20:41

an activist in your work um was just astonishing  to me you know that you could have this as a  

20:48

job because activism was always just part of um  you know my life and to think that my job could  

20:55

mirror that um i you know i see as a real real  privilege and responsibility so i guess my you  

21:02

know coming to this career so to speak kind  of found me as much as as much as i found it

21:13

thank you thalia and i also want to acknowledge  that thalia has a had a big influence on my  

21:18

career as well so uh and i'm sure a lot of  students here as well so now my question uh is  

21:27

for all panelists and i'm happy for anyone to  jump in for this first question so are there  

21:34

any particular campaigns or projects that you are  working on right now that challenges an area of  

21:41

injustice if so can you provide a brief overview  of this campaign and why it is or this project  

21:50

and why it is particularly significant uh in a  social or political sense at this present time

22:02

everyone's too polite i might ask her

22:07

look i can honestly i can talk to this question  for like three hours but i'm gonna try and keep  

22:10

it sitting so the short version of this is um and  i alluded to it with the introduction so i've um  

22:16

fell into this work around counter-terrorism  legislation knowing that um in my undergrad i  

22:22

studied criminology and legal studies so my work  was exposure to the criminal justice system um  

22:30

or sometimes my friends call it the criminal  injustice system because there's nothing just  

22:34

about it anyway we'll get there what i found in  my community as someone who identifies as muslim  

22:41

um is that in around uh around  the time i graduated actually  

22:45

and around the time we formed the muslim legal  network there was significant exposure around  

22:52

pieces of legislation that were contraries who  commonly held understandings of civil liberties  

22:57

in australia and around the world um australia  has enacted a number of um and i would say  

23:04

it's in the dozens of pieces of legislation  that are geared towards national security  

23:11

and have been if i'm frank targeted towards  the muslim or minority communities in australia  

23:18

we know this because of the way people have  been charged we know this because traditionally  

23:22

this is how they've been reported why that's  important why that's something that's still  

23:28

going on is we know that they are those  sorts of things are intrinsically related to  

23:33

how race um and power plays into policy making um  and it's in a lot of ways transitioned into what  

23:41

even though i don't specifically campaign on this  work at getup at the moment it is so intertwined  

23:48

with our democracy work because you can't separate  um what we loosely call uh the democratic process  

23:56

from uh racist policy or racism implementation of  that policy so when we talk about civil liberties  

24:02

at get up and we talk about uh what's something  that we just recently done which was the democracy  

24:06

dossier or the democracy report which people  may have seen it's about 90 pages long there's  

24:11

a youtube video of me scott ludlum a few of the  academics from usw speaking about it if anyone's  

24:16

interested but what it does is it demonstrates  um in a very matter-of-fact way just how poor  

24:24

australia's observance to what most people around  the world would see as something really simple um  

24:32

you know i mean we know in australia there's no um  inherent right to free speech um it comes out as a  

24:38

result of some case law um but when we go down  that rabbit hole we really see that there are  

24:45

there's a lot of work to be done around  this particular area and it's ongoing work  

24:48

um the unfortunate thing is we see um these you  know these different pieces of legislation where  

24:54

sunset clauses keep getting rolled over for you  know every few years you know it comes up um in a  

24:59

pandemic for example most people don't know there  have been half a dozen sunset clauses have been  

25:03

automatically rolled over over the last 18 months  like this is extraordinary we're talking about  

25:09

the ability to detain a 14 year old without charge  um hold them and not tell their parents there are  

25:15

extraordinary things occurring and i think um  it would be remiss of me not to mention that  

25:21

as an important campaign because i think it's  really emblematic of how we as a profession and  

25:26

if we want to talk about social justice really  understanding where our power lies and our power  

25:31

lies in challenging the power that we create  and we reinforce as being a part of the system  

25:37

so there's like a whole thinking that needs to go  behind it and we don't do it generally as lawyers  

25:43

um i'm trying to do it more so in my work but yeah  so that's probably one of the more interesting  

25:50

things that i'm working on at the moment that  you know get ups doing that i think is really  

25:53

important we should be speaking about and we  shouldn't necessarily just be going blindly into  

25:57

it i mentioned earlier that i was an investigator  and i think a lot of lawyers or people who want  

26:02

to do social change or social justice have a  have a real closeness to wanting to see justice  

26:07

so we want to we almost get drawn to policing in  some way like we're like we want to serve justice  

26:14

and then we very quickly pull ourselves away  because we realize policing is often attached to  

26:17

the injustice that's served on our communities so  when we talk about democracy and civil liberties  

26:25

we can't necessarily talk about power and  injustice and how that influence is really  

26:30

um stigmatizing a lot of um communities you  know selfishly with my community but like i  

26:36

said at the start i work quite closely even i get  up with our first nations communities and i think  

26:40

we really need to recognize that but i'll let um  allison and talia no doubt speak about that issue

26:50

um so i actually don't work on any kind of grand  um unified campaign the a lot of the work that  

26:57

i do um is concentrated on serving directly um  families first nations families who experience  

27:05

the death of a loved one in custody um and there  was a report released today that had finally  

27:10

crunched the official numbers that said since the  royal commission into aboriginal deaths in custody  

27:16

back 30 years ago in 1991 there have  been 471 first nations deaths in custody  

27:24

up until the end of 2020 and we know in the  intervening period there's been another 14.  

27:29

um and so of course that's really quite um  quite diffuse work in it in the sense that every  

27:37

death and every family must be honored in in  the work that you are bringing them along with  

27:42

um it also means that every time you encounter  every time you are kind of meeting people in these  

27:49

review systems you're trying to guide them through  um you're also trying to help them um do things  

27:56

that i guess you could describe as not being  served by the legal system um actually trying  

28:01

to build campaigns that put whether or not this  is something we can kind of openly talk about as  

28:07

um lawyers or as legally minded people actually  kind of put a political campaign pressure on the  

28:14

design of the courts to make them more just or  on these review processes to make them more just  

28:19

um so one example um in which a family is  kind of led through these mandatory inquests  

28:25

that happen after a death in custody um as  they've met with hostility um virtually all  

28:31

first nations there wasn't met with some kind  of um hostility in these review systems but  

28:37

one family who has um won an extremely um  exceptional version of this cruelty is the family  

28:44

of lane fella morrison uh and latoya rule his  sibling who is actually a phd student and scholar  

28:51

um here at uts uh and that um the circumstances  of fella's death just a heads up i'm going to talk  

28:58

about them was that he was um restrained in a hog  type position with his arms and legs behind him  

29:05

um he was placed face down in a van  um with a split hood placed over his  

29:12

head um and in the period in which there was no  cctv coverage um of what happened to fella uh he  

29:19

lost consciousness and he passed away a few days  later in an icu unit um and the immense difficulty  

29:27

in addition to um the the horror and trauma  of his death and his loss in his own right um  

29:34

was that the the guards who put him in  the back of the van refused to speak  

29:38

um and to this day still refuse to speak claiming  a novel penalty privilege um a right to protect  

29:45

themselves against professional consequences not  criminal ones um including um things like pay  

29:51

deductions or reprimand in their workplace  um but one in this space obviously because  

30:00

as has already been noted there's this huge power  dynamic that means a lot of what you do in social  

30:05

justice lawyering is lining up to lose and lose  with dignity and lose in a principal way um  

30:11

we there was a victory in this case that it  was because that family had organized um so  

30:18

specifically and in their power understanding the  limitations of the system and in honor of somebody  

30:23

who they loved um to get a legislative ban on spit  hoods like those that were placed on fella's head  

30:30

through the south australian parliament and  so to my understanding that's the first time  

30:35

there's been at all settings um ban on the use  of spit hoods that's enshrined in legislation  

30:41

um across all custodial and medical settings  in the state which is obviously um not complete  

30:48

justice that they're seeking um but one incredible  way that concerted organizing including um where  

30:56

there's a role for lawyers um can actually achieve  really tangible outcomes in unexpected places  

31:03

in this case certainly not in a court that has  been resisting them in every move um so that's  

31:09

an example of i suppose a campaign that's been um  very topical because it's happened so recently um  

31:17

but also that demonstrates just a model of um not  quite hope but a model of possibility for how we  

31:24

can do this kind of lawyering going forward um and  it has me really excited um for what's possible  

31:31

um acknowledging of course that with every first  nations death in custody is this this new wave  

31:38

these new wounds being opened in our community  um and while these are crucial points for us to  

31:45

carry people through as lawyers who are doing  kind of direct service work or as campaigners  

31:49

who are doing direct service work um they're not  just opportunities for change but opportunities to  

31:56

hold close the dignity um and the  sorryness of those families as well

32:08

um

32:11

yeah wow so i guess my um campaign if i were to  focus on one at the moment is on covert in prisons  

32:20

so it's probably doing some of the work before  it gets to the stage that alison's campaigning  

32:27

is around so trying to stop deaths in custody as  a result of covert um we know that prisons are  

32:37

inherently unsafe places um and especially unsafe  for first nations people due to systemic racism  

32:46

in the quality of care and the level of care um  and i think the gravity of the situation with  

32:54

covert has brought together families um justice  organizations prisoner advocates um and first  

33:02

nations organizations like deadly connections  in new south wales um so we've been working on  

33:10

trying to especially release people from prison  because they're overcrowded environments which  

33:18

give rise to the rapid transmission of diseases  like covert and indeed last month we saw  

33:25

um an outbreak of delta um and it's continuing  every day there are new cases i think today there  

33:32

were yesterday there were five new cases and um  last month there were over 400 covert cases in  

33:39

prisons in sydney um and this rate was at one  point in time ten times the transmission in  

33:47

prison than the general community so the risk  is much greater and yet of course these people  

33:53

have no choice to be there their loved ones  are in absolute fear for their lives and in  

33:59

addition to that the way that it's been managed is  through lockdowns so keeping people in their cell  

34:06

um we've heard for 24 hours a day for several  days not even having the opportunity to shower  

34:12

so there's lots of demands around the conditions  in prison and also the risk of dying from  

34:19

from covert and um just from unfortunately  really personal experience with my auntie  

34:25

i know that even a a hospital in  the community an icu ward and um  

34:33

sorry a ventilator might not save your life and  they don't have any of those things in prison  

34:39

um so it's it's a really um critical situation  and what with some of the things we've been doing  

34:45

include um we're obviously bringing families  together for support trying to advocate to  

34:52

corrections management and the government to have  conditions improved such as ensuring a tablet to  

35:01

every person in prison for digital visits we're  also running a legal case in the supreme court  

35:10

in two weeks and we've appeared at parliamentary  hearings and and and have press conferences and  

35:18

continue to share information on a facebook site  we moderate so we're trying to um i guess use  

35:25

legal avenues but also use other social and  political organizational avenues and we've  

35:33

had i mean it's not been i guess the clear type of  victory that allison referred to but i think we've  

35:40

had success in the sense that prison numbers have  rapidly increased in the last couple of months  

35:47

and so um judicial officers and parole boards are  awaken to these issues that we're trying to keep  

35:56

you know in the public's attention but it's  been a struggle you know it's prisons and  

36:02

allison's research um very much speaks  to this it they're something that are um  

36:10

filled generally with silence in the papers um  in the in the digital media and on the tv and  

36:17

um in the overwhelming i guess covered  um news cycle prisons really feature  

36:24

so it's been a challenge but i think that um  it's gaining momentum and and i think this the  

36:30

legal case will be another tool in our toolbox  to to ensure that the rights of people in prisons  

36:38

um are not forgotten and that they  have a voice as much as possible

36:46

thank you thalia thank you everyone for  sharing those really personal and important  

36:53

uh i'm just going to ask one more question because  i also want to ensure there's time for student  

37:00

questions uh and so that will um  be to any panel member can you  

37:06

uh in your experience what are some of the  ways in which the law or the justice system  

37:13

can either reproduce injustice or  alternatively be used to challenge injustice

37:25

uh and i'll ask allison first yeah you gotta  pick on us i don't think any of us will volunteer  

37:32

um yeah it's a really fantastic question the  answer is um in all ways it can be either and  

37:39

what's required is a really principled vigilance  as social justice practitioners whether we are  

37:46

engaged in the formal practice of law whether  engaged in campaigning community organizing  

37:51

if we're doing in-house work it requires vigilance  not just about um the impact or like the relative  

37:58

impact that we think we can make in the world but  also the forums for which we choose to ventilate  

38:03

them and the methods that we use to get things  through um it's yeah i don't think we're gonna  

38:09

have time to cover it today but um it's the moment  that you stop wrestling with these questions i  

38:14

think is when you have the capacity to do real  harm on a grand scale and what's really really  

38:19

critical is that you continue to wrestle with  um i guess the the way that you engage with the  

38:25

law and whether you are creating injustice or  whether you are using the small bit of capacity  

38:30

that i think settlement law has to to push back  and to minimize the harm in our communities

38:40

and so here would you like to add any observations  there i think without going over what allison  

38:48

said which i agree with completely i'll  give this perspective and that is because  

38:53

there's a lot of students online you'll find  challenges in your career particularly early on  

38:57

with respect to what i like to call the question  of integrity if you're going to go down this path  

39:03

the question of integrity revolves  around whether or not you're willing  

39:07

um in your heart of hearts and you won't know the  answer like we just said it's a constant learning  

39:11

and a constant educating yourself and if you  ever stop you're in trouble because that means  

39:16

you've given up on you know teaching yourself  something new but i i might just say because

39:25

we know the law has as a system has the potential  to do harm unfortunately because people aren't  

39:31

balanced in um even though lady justice is fine  and the scales are supposed to be you know even um  

39:36

we know that you don't come we don't come the same  way to the law um and i think if you're ever in a  

39:42

place where something feels wrong in your gut and  as ridiculous as this sounds i'm sure my panelists  

39:47

will agree with me when it feels wrong it probably  is wrong so you need to think about whether or not  

39:52

if you're going to live in this space of social  justice um are you willing to stop and think back  

40:00

to it's a really bad reference point but i do it  all the time um often my parents used to say to me  

40:07

when i wanted to become a lawyer you know you  know the law was of one of the first professions  

40:11

and it was like medicine the law and the clergy  and the reason they say that is because it was  

40:17

supposed to be you're servicing something greater  than yourself and i think that's the approach we  

40:21

take in sort of social justice or what we now  is often termed movement lawyering what is this  

40:28

what is the service you're doing um is it taking  this greater practice forward if it's not you  

40:34

have that question of integrity and do you want a  question you do you want to sit there and think um  

40:40

what does my integrity say about me  in the decision i'm about to make  

40:44

and often that will guide you as to whether  or not the law is helping you or hindering you  

40:50

it's not a real answer but it's a feeling that  i think it took me 15 years of practice to get  

40:56

on top of and i'm still working on it now so  i thought i'll give everyone here a head start  

41:01

sally no they they were really um  brilliant answers about kind of the  

41:08

um i mean i guess the way in which we negotiate um  our relationship with the law and perceive the law  

41:17

and what i what i wanted to add is that um while  it's really clear to me and i get a lot of my  

41:25

um impressions of and and their deep feelings  often deep feelings of outrage um of what  

41:32

injustice is i get those from from people i work  with people who are who are affected by injustice  

41:39

well well it might be clear to me we shouldn't  take for granted these terms justice and injustice  

41:46

because for some people um that you know the  rule of law which can in many ways uphold um  

41:55

power and privilege is a system of justice  and many people who work in the law would  

42:03

say they work with integrity um so for me the way  i perceive it is more around what the law does to

42:14

uphold or challenge structural relationships  especially relationships of oppression and  

42:20

it's about identifying where you see yourself  in that relationship um because i don't think  

42:27

anyone would you know i know going to sydney  university it was so um normalized that you  

42:34

would go into a large firm as a clerk and no  one would ever say that they were going on to do  

42:42

the work of injustice um so i i think you know  when we talk about social justice we're talking  

42:49

about something that is about um the broader  community in the broader society and how that is  

42:56

affected by laws and that is and how we work that  out is by being engaged in the broader community  

43:03

it's really difficult to make those kinds  of judgment calls from the sidelines and  

43:10

and i would say once you get too embedded in a  profession it's hard to do that critical work so  

43:17

the critical work needs to start now and i think  students uh i wouldn't as students i wouldn't  

43:24

say you should be thinking about a future  career in social justice what i would say is  

43:32

social justice should just be something that is  part of your life and some of the most amazing  

43:38

social change in the world has happened through  student movements so don't underestimate your  

43:44

own power and that will help you navigate i guess  how the law works and what your role in it will be

43:58

thank you sally i might hand over to georgina now  uh to field questions from the audience yeah of  

44:04

course and thank you so much to our panelists  i think those insights were absolutely amazing  

44:09

um so we've got a few questions coming in  on the chat which i'll be able to read out  

44:13

but um if anyone wants to ask a question to our  panelists um live face to face feel free to use  

44:18

the raise hand function and i can call upon you  but if you're not comfortable we're totally happy  

44:23

to i can you can listen to my voice and i can  read out the questions um so we have what a first  

44:29

question from melanie and i think that this is  probably a question a lot of students might have  

44:34

um what are some things university students can do  in commencing change when we are not yet in roles  

44:40

such as you all are um so yeah if any of  the panelists want to contribute to that one

44:52

um it's not always like uh something that's  replicable because i know people it's much  

44:56

more difficult now and i also know that um a  lot of people have to work and to take up their  

45:02

own time that they're not studying to get through  university um but a really critical thing that you  

45:08

can do and we don't want to discount like direct  service work to the community is go and volunteer  

45:14

for community legal centres do a lot of paralegal  work it has the added benefit of helping you um  

45:21

develop that sense of intuition that we were just  talking about as well as beginning to understand  

45:27

um and maybe even make explicit like your values  and how they relate to the process of law as well  

45:33

as a very practical matter just developing skills  that are going to be really really useful in this  

45:38

toolkit um because it's um all very well to  kind of go in with some principles blazing  

45:44

but actually there's sometimes a practical  matter of making sure that you're useful to  

45:47

the communities that you're serving as well um  so i personally cut my teeth at the als office  

45:53

in parramatta immensely immensely valuable work  um and i would encourage everybody to do the same

46:03

amazing thank you oh thanks  for that to say that um  

46:07

we run a subject called strategic litigation um  it's run by craig longman and i support him um  

46:14

craig longman is based at jambana as a senior  researcher um and part of that is getting  

46:20

an understanding of doing community-led work  especially with first nations communities so i'd  

46:26

really encourage people to to look at that subject  and um yeah just kind of being part of those  

46:33

organizations is a great experience for you but  often it's really valuable for the organizations  

46:38

as well um so i think um i think it's a really  good way to um immerse yourself in something that  

46:46

is um is really part of building the field because  social justice and so here said this it's it's  

46:54

something that you might get paid for but a lot  of those centers continue to rely on um pro bono  

47:01

or volunteer work even as legal graduates and even  if you do take a path that um you know might for  

47:07

example being a law firm there's nothing that um  means you can't continue with these opportunities  

47:13

and i'm sure they you know many of those services  would value from having those types of skills

47:21

thank you felia um zahid did you  want to add anything to that or  

47:25

no i'm good okay amazing well the next  question is directed to sahir anyway  

47:29

so um rebecca has a question for user here she  asked when you're in private practice for 10 years  

47:35

was this mainly revolved around commercial  law and if so did you still know that your  

47:40

heart was in social justice and then she  says that she feels as though law students  

47:44

are often steered towards a commercial law  career which is something we've kind of all  

47:47

discussed tonight but i know it's not for me  and that her heart is still in social justice

47:54

what a great question thanks  rebecca um i asked the same question  

47:59

um i'll tell you what i did because i can't speak  for everyone else um i got a job as a paralegal  

48:06

um i worked sort of out of necessity but i also  began gauging what i was doing i didn't work in  

48:13

commercial i was a litigator um and it was a  deliberate decision for me not to work in m a  

48:19

or majors and acquisitions i actually give my way  towards litigation largely because i understood  

48:25

um and i think you know if people go and do the  strategic litigation course i don't know about  

48:30

it but i'm sure you will find out that strategic  litigation is quite literally uh you know avenues  

48:36

of litigation better commercial litigation or  um targeted litigation in the climate space or  

48:42

um in any space that is important um so to answer  your question yes my heart was has always been  

48:50

in uh social change and social justice  i don't think that will ever change  

48:53

like i think that was pre decided before  i was born like in apartheid south africa  

48:58

i had no choice right i came here and that  was it it was done protest when i was five  

49:03

you know it's been going ever since but the  reality is um and as much as you know audrey lord  

49:09

says you can't use the master's tools to break  down the system etc etc you do need to learn it  

49:14

um and i'm really proud of the fact that i worked  at a top-tier law firm for a couple of reasons um  

49:21

i worked at a talk to your law firm where i was  the only visibly muslim person there like and  

49:26

that for me was important because i was the first  visibly you know identifying muslim person there  

49:32

in the legal team and that was important in and  of itself so the reason i mention that is when you  

49:38

appear as a solicitor who has a social conscious  for example you actually change the environment  

49:46

you're in like you impact that environment that  you're in so don't think if you know if you think  

49:51

i can stick it out for maybe two years you know do  my grad rotations you will learn great things i'm  

49:57

still applying the same tedious you know stickler  for detail in certain things now that i learned  

50:05

in 2007 and 2008 when i was between 2008 to 2010  is grad because i knew it was important um you  

50:14

know and those things i'm using now working at  get up um those things i'm now using when i'm  

50:20

you know responding to government notices um  trying to do all of those little bits and pieces  

50:26

i think it's really important that we recognize  where our heart is but we also realize that we  

50:32

we work and play in the system that is not  necessarily built for social justice we've  

50:36

got to push it and force it and massage it  that way um so i hope that helps rebecca  

50:44

thank you so much to here um allison othally  did you have any comments on that question no  

50:48

no amazing thank you so much um and yeah i think  those sentiments are really important for those  

50:53

of us progressing in our law degree when sometimes  it can feel like the corporate world is this big  

50:58

bad crazy place and we don't really know how  to maneuver it um so margaret has a question  

51:04

which is a bit broader zooming out a little bit  um and it's just very simply what challenges do  

51:09

we still face today when reaching justice  um so a bit of a broader one to change the  

51:15

um way a bit so maybe alice and orthalia  if you wanted to comment on that one

51:21

um so much uh one of the um recent this  is probably a critical campaign that um  

51:27

everybody here should be concerned with  there's some recent changes to charity  

51:31

regulations that actually impact the capacity of  not-for-profits who rely on tax deductible status  

51:38

to engage in the kind of movement lawyering  that we know actually makes a difference  

51:42

um so maybe um i will send around a link to  some information about that in that campaign  

51:49

because that's a direct attack on our capacity  to mobilize um and it's um not really a surprise  

51:55

that it came after this massive um growth in  people talking about black lives matter first  

52:02

nation steps in custody that we saw come about  in the middle of june last year which was very  

52:07

much enabled by the not-for-profit sector who um  in that moment to their credit did something very  

52:13

brazen bold um in a period of great hostility so  i will share some links to that with you later on

52:23

um dalia also if you wanted to  comment on that one as well maybe  

52:27

no okay so maybe i think we have another question  from psy which is what is the role of the criminal  

52:35

justice system in providing alternative avenues  for convicted individuals to not add to the prison  

52:41

problem and the issues with come that which come  with being in prison or detention so maybe thalia  

52:48

if you wanted to comment on that one yeah um  that's a great question because i think it's been  

52:55

on a lot of people's lives especially in in light  of the black lives matter movement that's exposed  

53:00

the harms of the of the criminal system um and  and prisons um and with that movement there has  

53:08

been a lot of talk about abolition and imagining  a world without prisons um on the basis that  

53:16

it's not simply about liberty it's really about  building communities and building safety and that  

53:23

prisons are not safe places so what a lot of  these um proponents of abolition talk about  

53:30

uh building for example mutual aid where um  we have communities that support one another  

53:38

um many people who end up in prison not only do  they face issues of say discrimination or bias  

53:49

in the stages of policing or even as elise  can talk to how we define offenses like  

53:56

offensive language and how they're policed but  also because they have a lack of opportunities to  

54:07

things that many of us take for granted such as  housing education employment a regular income  

54:14

so if we looked at all of these issues and  we focused you know investment and resources  

54:23

on those types of um you know basic rights  really um i think we would redress a lot of  

54:32

the underlying issues um but also  that you know there's the problem  

54:38

you know the the the tragic issue of trauma  that many people who come to prison have and  

54:46

prison often re-traumatizes um rather than deals  with underlying traumas um it's it's not a system  

54:53

that is proven to reduce offending for instance  indeed going to prison is often a way to increase  

55:01

offending um so i think we need to accept the  shortcomings of prison and look at other systems  

55:09

that need to be buttressed and i know in victoria  for example where they're looking at building a  

55:14

women's a new women's prison they have a campaign  called um homes not homes are not prisons is that  

55:22

right allison am i um and so so there's a lot a  lot of attention to these underlying issues and  

55:30

um i think we need to also remember that the  great majority of people in prison are not  

55:34

serious offenders um and and in in fact they're  there for very short times often less than six  

55:41

months so we totally dislocate people you know  they may lose their homes they may lose their  

55:47

their children their jobs um and then we put them  back in society um you know with with very little  

55:55

um so it's not a it's the opposite of building  building communities so i think i think there are  

56:01

um there are alternatives that we need to think  about as a society um and i and i guess i i would  

56:07

just say that um i i do feel like um i have a lot  of issues with crime i don't want to suggest that  

56:14

i you know that i um tolerate crime but what i'm  concerned with is the crime we tend to focus on um  

56:22

which which tends to be a lot of personal property  minor crimes rather than some of the major crimes  

56:30

of corporations in the state um for example when  um a mining corporation blows up a sacred site  

56:37

we don't imprison anyone on the board and  so we i think we really have to rethink  

56:44

the the criminal law paradigm the prison paradigm  and have a vision about what society we want

56:53

amazing thank you so much dahlia did anyone else  want to make some final comments before we wrap  

56:58

up for tonight amazing well on that note on behalf  of the uts faculty of law the uts law student  

57:08

society and all the students here tonight i would  like to thank our three panelists and allison  

57:13

dalia and zaheer for sharing their knowledge and  comments with us tonight i know i can definitely  

57:18

speak on behalf of all the students here that it  was inspiring to hear your insights about pursuing  

57:22

a career in social justice as we've discussed  especially in this time it can be extremely  

57:27

difficult for us as students to conceptualize the  best way to be able to pursue a career in social  

57:33

justice so thank you for giving us your insights  on your own experience and providing us with a  

57:37

look into what community level change actually  looks like so thank you again um a big thank you  

57:44

to crystal beck mack renata elise erica and the  entire social justice and brennan team for helping  

57:50

to administer administrate the event tonight thank  you as well to our dean leslie hitchens maxine  

57:55

evas and other members of the faculty for joining  us we encourage all participants to participants  

58:01

here to act on the tips learned tonight and google  their community legal centres and seek out any  

58:05

volunteering opportunities which you can claim lts  for we always post new and exciting opportunities  

58:11

on the brennan collective so we would encourage  you all to get involved with that a reminder to  

58:16

all participants that they will receive five  roj for attending this evening's event and we  

58:21

encourage all brandonites to keep their eyes  peeled for our brennan summer circle for 21 to  

58:26

2021 and 2022 with some exciting new opportunities  involved within the summer circle uh so thank you  

58:32

a big thank you again to our panelists and to  everyone attending we can't wait to see you in  

58:37

2022 for another great year of justice talks  so thank you everyone and we'll see you soon  

58:44

thank you georgina thanks everyone thank you  to our panelists as well uh it's been such an  

58:52

interesting discussion i felt it went too quickly  but i do encourage all um the brennan knights i  

58:58

didn't know that was a word uh to go and follow  our panel members uh thalia zahir and alison and  

59:06

the work that they do um you can follow them  on twitter and various other channels as well  

59:11

so please do that uh i i hope you all stay safe  everyone and have a lovely evening thanks again