Brennan Justice Talks 2021 Sexual Harassment in the Legal Profession with Special Guest Kate Eastman AM SC

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Good evening everyone and welcome  to tonight's Brennan Justice talk  

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focusing on the issue of sexual harassment in  the legal profession. My name is Renata Grossi  

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I'm one of the co-directors of the Brennan  Justice and Leadership Program so tonight  

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I'm joined here by one of my fellow co-directors  from the Uts Law Students' Society Georgina Hedge,  

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Crystal McLaughlin our Brennan administrator  and most importantly our special guest and  

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presenter for this evening Prominent Senior  Council of the New South Wales Bar Kate Eastman  

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now I'll say a little more about our speaker in  a moment but first, I would like to hand over to  

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our first nation student Keira Sloane to do the  acknowledgement of country Keira hi everyone my  

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name's Keira and I'm a proud Wiradjuri woman and  I decided to do a quick acknowledgement of country  

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I'd like to acknowledge the traditional  custodians of the Gadigal people of the Eora  

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Nation whose land I'm zooming in from today. I  would further like to acknowledge the traditional  

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custodians of the various traditional  lands you were all attending from today  

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I'd like to pay my respects to the elders past  present and emerging and extend that respect to  

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other indigenous people who are present and if  you haven't already please pop in the chat which  

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traditional lands you're zooming in from and I  now pass back to Renata for the rest of the event

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thank you Keira it's really good to be  reminded of one of the biggest social  

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justice issues that we face in this country that  we are in fact on stolen land and i would also  

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like to add my very own acknowledgement  of the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation  

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upon whose ancestral lands this city campus now  stands and also to pay my respects to the elders  

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both past and present and acknowledge them  as the traditional custodians of knowledge  

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of this land okay uh let me take a moment  to just quickly lay out some housekeeping  

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this zoom event is being recorded for  teaching learning and event purposes um only  

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the speakers and those that ask questions in the  discussion time will come up in the zoom recording  

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

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and we also appreciate that there are many reasons  for not having cameras on we do welcome seeing  

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faces and especially when asking a question but  we completely understand if you do not do so  

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now in relation to questions and comments  please feel free to post on the chat  

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we will be monitoring it throughout the talk  and we'll put all the relevant comments and  

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questions to our speaker during the discussion  time and finally for our brennan students in  

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order to claim your five roj points if you could  please list your full name now in the chat box  

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as it appears on the uts systems and our brennan  team here will award you your points after this  

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event okay that's all the housekeeping so let's  get to the very important part of the evening um  

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which is the to for me to introduce to you our  very special guest and speaker kate eastman  

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who is going to be speaking on the issue of  sexual harassment in the legal profession  

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kate eastwood is senior counsel at the new south  wales bar she has 30 years experience in dispute  

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resolution and advocacy in a wide range of legal  areas including employment discrimination and  

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human rights law kate eastman has extensive  experience in rural commissions and inquiries  

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preparing submissions and advice for human  rights ngos and community legal centres  

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she also regularly participates in mediation and  conciliation of complex and multi-party disputes  

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now in addition to her experience in practice  kate eastman is also a senior fellow in the  

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faculty of law at monash university where she  teaches a range of postgraduate international  

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and australian human rights law courses her  commitment to human rights work is evident  

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in her extensive pro bono work which has included  just to name some of it uh representing a cd women  

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trafficked into syria david hicks during his  time in guantanamo bay asylum seekers women  

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experiencing sexual violence sexual harassment  and discrimination children with disabilities  

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seeking access to education and in war crime  investigations this work was recognised when  

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kate eastman was awarded a new south wales law  foundation award for her services to pro bono work  

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and in the 2021 queen's birthday honors  list when she was appointed as a member  

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of the order of australia we are indeed honored  to have such a prominent speaker here tonight  

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so welcome kate and i look forward to your talk  on a topic which is very prominent in the news  

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this week with the federal government's national  summit on women's safety so tonight kate smith  

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will talk to us about sexual harassment  in the legal profession over to you kate

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well Renata thank you very much uh for that very  uh warm welcome I'm absolutely delighted to join  

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you it's a shame we can't do this in person but  um it is a great honour to participate so thank  

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you for the kind words so I also acknowledge the  traditional owners on the lands on which we're all  

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meeting today and pay my respects to their elders  past present and emerging and I also acknowledge  

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our women the women lawyers who've come before  us who blaze the trails and who've opened  

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up opportunities for us so I certainly  acknowledge and respect our elder women  

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I also acknowledge the members of the faculty  who are with us this evening thank you very much  

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and also to all the students participating  this afternoon warm welcome so I've got some  

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slides and I'm going to speak to them so fingers  crossed that this will work let's see how we go

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so the topic I'm going to talk about  today is pretty grim I don't have a lot of  

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good news for you but I hope that I'll be able to  identify where we can make progress I always find  

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when I talk about this topic that it can have an  impact and I'm very alive to the impact of trauma  

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so if any time you feel uncomfortable I don't  mind if you turn me on moot and just take a  

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moment but I've also given you some contact  numbers there as we talk through the issues

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well I want to start with something quite  alarming on the 22nd of June last year at  

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around 4 30 in the afternoon I can  honestly say my email box exploded  

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it was around this time that uh the high court  made public the fact that it had undertaken  

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an investigation into the conduct of a former  judge of the high court that was mr dyson hayden

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the court acknowledged that as a result of the  investigation that the complaints concerning six  

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associates of the court in relation to mr hayden's  conduct towards them had been substantiated

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the chief justice issued a press release and  i've given you a little bit of an extract on  

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the screen there the chief justice said there is  no place for sexual harassment in any workplace  

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we are ashamed this could have happened at the  high court of australia we've made a sincere  

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apology to the six women whose complaints were  born out we know it would have been difficult  

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for them to come forward and in that  statement the chief justice said  

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that the court believes the women now mr hayden  has not spoken publicly about these allegations  

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but shortly after the release from the high court  through his lawyers he issued a press release  

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denying the allegations and denying  that he had done any wrongdoing

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i think it's fair to say that the news of  dyson hayden's conduct shook us it took us  

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in the sense of how could this happen at  the highest levels of the legal profession  

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and what did this mean for us as a  profession so the reaction was extraordinary  

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and it's really caused a lot of deep  thinking in the legal profession  

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earlier this year at the opening of the law  term the new south wales chief justice chief  

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justice baptist said the following as i've got  on the screen openly acknowledged that the legal  

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profession has had a significant problem with  sexual harassment but he also acknowledged that  

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the profession had become acutely aware of the  problem and the need to endeavor to eliminate it  

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so this is what i want to talk about this evening  i want to start by looking at sexual harassment  

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in the legal profession we're all about rules  in the legal profession so what are the rules  

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a good place to start is the  definition of sexual harassment  

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and that's contained in the commonwealth sex  discrimination act in section 28a there has  

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been an amendment to it last week but i'll go  with the version when i prepared the slides  

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essentially this is the definition of sexual  harassment it's quite a legal definition and  

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you can see that there's lots of words in  that and as you know with any statute the  

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task is to work out what are the meaning  of these words and how does the law apply  

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so i think it's always good to boil these legal  concepts down to sort of some key factors so these  

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are the elements of sexual harassment first of all  you have to identify conduct of a sexual nature  

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that's an objective test the second  limb is is that conduct unwelcome  

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so not all uh conduct of a sexual nature would  be unwelcome but where it's unwelcome to the  

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woman for the most part who's on the receiving  end of it that will depend on how the particular  

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woman responds it's not a one-size-fits-all  and it's not a test of the reasonable woman  

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but the way in which our law currently operates  is it's not enough for the conduct to simply be  

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unwelcome there's an overlay of a test and  that is what a reasonable person looking at  

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all those circumstances have anticipated that the  unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature would offend  

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intimidate or humiliate the person concerned so  this is the reasonableness overlay and that's got  

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both a mixed subjective and objective test  so it's sort of quite a clunky definition  

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but in terms of what will be conduct of a sexual  nature that's very broad it can be at the most  

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serious end sexual assault or sexual violence  and perhaps at the other end of the spectrum  

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although there's always degrees in this it can  be inappropriate sexually loaded comments jokes  

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innuendo and it can be things that build up over  time where somebody may be groomed over a period  

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of time so it's quite an array of conduct that's  occurred in my practice over 30 years i've sort  

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of kept a list of the weird and wonderful things  and i had one case in which flicking rubber bands  

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at somebody's legs in a provocative way was an act  of sexual harassment so it's it's wide and varied  

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now that's the civil test that applies to all  of us including lawyers but for lawyers we  

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also have a set of professional conduct rules  so in australia depending on whether you're  

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practicing as a solicitor or a barista there  are rules that apply to our professional conduct  

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and so the legal profession uniform laws and i've  put the solicitor's rules here but it's the same  

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for the baristas too is that a solicitor  must not engage in the course of practice  

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conduct that constitutes discrimination  sexual harassment or workplace bullying  

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and that definition of sexual harassment  for the solicitors and baristas rules  

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is the same definition as the sex discrimination  act so that's unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature  

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so that gives you a little bit of an idea  about the rules so now i want to say what do  

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we actually know about sexual harassment in the  legal profession i sort of want to start with  

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it's nothing new so when we look at how the  profession has responded to sexual harassment i  

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think it's probably fair to say that there wasn't  much attention to this issue until the mid-1990s  

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there was an important report prepared in new  south wales called the keys young report and that  

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looked at gender bias in the legal profession  at that time and if i just take barristers  

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60 of barristers women barristers in new south  wales reported experiencing sexual harassment  

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it's quite a high number then where there was  another groundbreaking report in 1998 in relation  

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to victoria and the victorian bar around this  time new south wales introduced the uh a legal  

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profession regulation called regulation 69b and  that introduced that professional conduct rule  

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but it also introduced a mandatory requirement for  legal practitioners to have to undergo training  

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in discrimination harassment equal opportunity  and work health and safety every three years  

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so we had hoped by the late 1990s that  you'd start to see this change in culture  

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but sadly that hasn't been the case and so what  we see is a series of reports that followed  

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into the new century and probably one of the more  significant reports is in 2014 which is the law  

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council of australia it released its report on the  national attrition and re-engagement survey report  

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so that big study and that had some very alarming  statistics so if the women who had responded to  

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the survey for what's called the nas report 55 of  women had experienced sexual harassment in their  

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professional life 80 percent of women embarrassed  barristers experienced bullying or intimidation  

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and 84 of barristers had experienced gender  discrimination the nas report told us that the  

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bar was probably the worst place for women while  in firms or in-house or in government practice  

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things were a little bit better we did a survey in  new south wales and in response to our practicing  

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certificate applications and we found that 12  of those responding had been sexually harassed  

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the startling thing about all of this  for me was that in 1995 with keys young  

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of the women who reported experiencing  sexual harassment no one made a complaint  

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when the nars report was released in 2014 and  the survey participants were asked whether they  

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had made a formal complaint no one had made  a formal complaint but they had raised issues  

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perhaps with their immediate supervisor or with  a trusted colleague or friend so we have really  

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at this stage a culture of silence in the legal  profession where clearly sexual harassment was  

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an issue but women kept their silence there was a  reluctance to come forward or to make a complaint

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so what's then happened well i think um you might  recall in october 2017 the metoo movement really  

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burst onto the scene that really arose out of  some revelations involving harvey weinstein in  

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the united states but it started to snowball and  this had an impact in australia in this sense  

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is that the legal profession said well it might  be us too and there was some very significant  

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work done by the international bar association  that looked at the profession across the world  

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and i just got up on the slide there's some of  the results of the us ii report conducted by  

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the international bar association so the numbers  were still very high in terms of the experience  

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of women being bullied in connection with their  work in the law or experiencing sexual harassment  

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so while this was happening in terms of the  international bar association and i will say  

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talking to those involved in that there's a very  significant number of australians who participated  

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in this survey work there was also the reference  made by the australian government to ask our sex  

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discrimination commissioner kate jenkins to  conduct an investigation into the experience  

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of sexual harassment in australian workplaces  so that now resulted in the respect work report  

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which was released on the 5th of march last year  and you'll see that the findings were that there  

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was about 30 of women who had experienced  sexual harassment in the past five years  

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but significantly for almost 20 percent they've  been a negative impact on health and this was  

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across all industries and you can also see i  think some interesting findings about the cost  

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so while of all this was happening we  said right can we as the legal profession  

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look at the respective work report and find out  what can we do perhaps in the legal profession  

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so this was important in terms of the  findings from the respective work report  

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it was low awareness of what type of  conduct constituted sexual harassment  

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there was gaps in incomplete coverage in the  sex discrimination act and that was particularly  

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important because for the most part barristers  were not covered by the sex discrimination act  

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because they are not employees and they may be  covered when they provide services but for the  

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way in which barristers or sole practitioners  operated the sex discrimination act didn't apply  

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now that's changed it changed last week with  the amendments to the sex discrimination act  

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and you also saw those key findings that  people were reluctant to make complaints  

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and the systems for making complaints were  difficult uh the outcomes if one makes a complaint  

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of sexual harassment were not good the damages  aren't particularly high and they're expensive to  

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run cases and often non-disclosure agreements of  confidentiality agreements are a real feature and  

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we saw this in terms of the impact in the legal  profession so since me too what's happened well  

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we were doing a lot of work in the legal  profession among women lawyers following  

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the respect of work report and women lawyers  have been very involved and really had made some  

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some fantastic contributions to the work of  respect at work lots of submissions made by  

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the lawyers association by women worse personally  and various legal bodies but it really took the  

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22nd of june to almost shape the legal profession  into action so the law council of australia  

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immediately responded and we held a big round  table we pulled everybody together and we said  

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we need a national action plan we need to make  sure my light's going that the law is clear that  

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there's comprehensive coverage across the legal  profession and there's a consistency of approach  

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we talked about the need to support women who are  victims and survivors of sexual violence at work  

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and we needed to find pathways that if women wish  to make a complaint they would not be the ones  

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with the burden but the institution should take  responsibility and around this time it was almost  

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like that there was a wake up in the courts it's  an important case in the full court of the federal  

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court involving a solicitor in northern new south  wales and his persistent attempts and his lawyer  

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said he just wanted to be like mr darcy from pride  and prejudice was just not on in the profession  

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then over the course of the last year there's been  a lot of work done within the legal profession  

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and we've seen other cases there was a prosecution  for professional misconduct of one of the members  

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of the new south wales bar who've been involved  in a fairly lewd act at a social function  

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the bar council of new south wales had referred  that matter to the tribunal and the tribunal made  

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a finding that his conduct was unsatisfactory  professional conduct there was also the release  

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of two significant reports one in victoria which  looked at the experience of sexual harassment  

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in victoria courts and tribunals and a big  review of the south australian legal profession  

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this has really culminated also in bringing  the respective work recommendations together  

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the government announced a national  roadmap to respond to respective work  

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and that has uh resulted in some  amendments to the sex discrimination act  

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that were introduced in june but passed last  september but we've also seen that this continues  

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to be poor behaviour of members of the judiciary  and there was an announcement in march sorry  

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in july this year about the conduct of one of the  federal circuit court judges who has retired now  

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so it's a grim picture and i suppose i  want to leave you with these questions  

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is is change possible and why is there  something about the legal profession  

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so the factors that really underpin why sexual  harassment might occur in the legal profession are  

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the following factors we are a very hierarchical  patriarchal male-dominated culture in the legal  

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profession this is surprising because for the  last over 30 years almost 60 of law graduates  

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have been women but notwithstanding this  large number of women are studying more  

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and many entering the profession it's still a  very heavily male dominated profession so if  

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i give you an example in the new south wales bar  there's about two and a half thousand barristans  

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almost one third of the entire bath that's  all barristers in new south wales are men  

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over the age of 60. almost half of the whole  bar are men over the age of 50. there's about  

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50 women senior council and we comprise  maybe about three percent of the entire bar  

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um when we look at the profession  it continues to be male dominant  

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we have entrenched gender bias in the way  in which the profession is structured and it  

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works it's a very competitive and adversarial  setting there is a lack of cultural diversity  

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and there is a culture of silence  that culture of silence protects men  

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and it also contributes to fear among women fear  that they will be shamed fear that they will  

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lose their careers and fear that they will  be blamed for allowing misconduct to occur  

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so these issues are particularly troubling  but i think that the profession is finally  

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facing the issues and will do something about  it is change possible i think the answer is yes  

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um the honourable justice kenneth hayne who served  on the high court at the same time as dyson hayden  

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has been extremely outspoken on these issues and  his view is this shouldn't be a complex matter  

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that men should understand when their behavior is  inappropriate and he says simply just stop doing  

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it how hard can it be he says just but i do think  sometimes in changing cultures and understanding  

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hierarchical environments that really are founded  on patriarchal systems it takes sometimes a little  

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bit more than simply stopping we need to think  about how many women there are in the profession  

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but importantly to think about  where women are in the profession  

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it's not just enough to have more than 50 of  solicitors now being women but we need women  

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in senior leadership roles and we need women to be  visible in those leadership roles we need to talk  

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about cultural change and as women we need to talk  about what type of profession we want to work in  

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and how we would like our profession to  serve us and for us to serve our profession  

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we need to address shame and one of the most  startling experiences i had in listening to the  

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stories of women who came forward and talked about  what happened to them following the revelations  

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of dyson hayden was a colleague of mine who i  worked with when i first started as a lawyer  

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about 30 years ago she was a few years ahead  of me and she had experienced sexual harassment  

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i never knew about that at the time  she hadn't told people at the time

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but 30 years later it still stuck with her  she still felt shame but now she was angry  

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and she looked at her professional life  and she asked herself this question  

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what type of woman could i have been if i was not  sexually arrest and what type of lawyer could i  

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have been what choices might i've made in my  life had i not experienced sexual harassment  

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and so that reflection uh about the impact  of sexual harassment yes it's acute when it  

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occurs but the shame and the stigma can stay with  women and that's not acceptable i don't think in  

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modern work life and nor is it acceptable that  somebody carries that shame and distress with them  

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so i think we need to change the culture by  not imposing the obligations on women who  

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experience sexual harassment to also have the  burden of doing something about it or fixing it  

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we need to shift to institutional responsibilities  which is what the chief justice has talked about  

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and we need to think about our role as bystanders  and awareness how far do we tolerate everyday  

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sexism how far do we participate in it because you  know we've got to get on with everybody and feel  

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that we too want to belong the legal  profession is one of wanting to belong  

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but belonging should not come at the price of  treating women unequally or allowing sexual  

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harassment to occur so you can probably  gather i'm very strong about these issues  

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and uh the topics i've talked about are quite  strong so i'm giving you the reminder of the  

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respective work as a respected work report but  the 1 800 respect number now from here on i'd  

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love to have a discussion with you and we can open  up some questions and discussion so georgina over  

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to you yeah thank you so much kate that was just  absolutely such an insightful presentation and i'm  

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sure will only become more insightful through  the questions so i would encourage everyone  

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if you would like to please use the raise hand  function if you would like to ask a live question  

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we'd love to hear your voices but also understand  that if you would prefer to just use the chat  

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um feel free to pop your questions in there um but  if anyone has any questions we'd love to kick off  

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i think that oh we've got a raised hand um maxine  would you like to kick us off with the first  

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question thank you so much georgina and thank  you so much kate that was just so comprehensive  

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and thought provoking so as you know kate i  work in the faculty of lauren have taught for  

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several years and was also in practice and i  frame this question not by way of an excuse for  

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conduct and behavior that is unlawful but in  terms of the law itself the practice of law  

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the laws that are based on very much winner  loser the competitive adversarial nature of law  

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and do you think that has any impact on behavior  in the profession and you know i think also in  

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the sporting world where we know um harassment  and uh is right and treatment of women is is um  

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is a major challenge and inquiries that have  been in the um in sport as well that that also  

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has that kind of competitiveness about it that  there's got to be a winner in every case and um  

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do you think yeah does that have any impact on um  on how the profession conducts itself thanks kate  

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thanks maxine that's an excellent question i  think the answer to that is yes uh because that  

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adversarial setting is very much about winning  or losing and that very much is a patriarchal  

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structure in terms of dispute resolution and  it's a very different way of thinking when  

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you've got one winner and one loser and you're  not really looking at a solution that suits both  

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whereas women for the most part i'm generalizing  look at more systems-based thinking in terms of  

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the way in which they might solve problems and  not just in a sense convert the old-fashioned  

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form of dueling into verbal julie in a court but i  think at another level it's this is that when you  

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work in an adversarial setting and you've got the  responsibility of representing your client and the  

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clients paying you to advocate for them and to win  the case there's a lot of showmanship when i use  

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that word deliberately in terms of the theater  of law whether it be in a meeting or whether it  

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be in court and so you have to be confident and  we learn our confidence based on looking at how  

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other people conduct themselves and our models for  that really come from men rather than from women  

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so i'm very i talk very much to the junior  readers and new barristers about the importance  

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of vulnerability and the courage and vulnerability  i'm very sort of taken with brene brown's work on  

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this the courage comes from vulnerability and  it's very hard to be confident all the time  

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when you're in an adversarial setting  because you're constantly surrounded by  

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critics they're the judges they're the clients  they're your opponents they're your bosses and  

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i think we get into this culture of confidence to  mask our vulnerability and we forget that there's  

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courage in expressing vulnerability or uncertainty  and that doesn't sit very easily for lawyers  

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so our natural inclination is not to be vulnerable  but to armor ourselves up over and over again  

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and i think that really contributes to  behaviours in terms of how words interact  

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which almost make any opportunity to get an  advantage over somebody else or to show that  

34:33

you're stronger than someone else that sexual  harassment can be a result because sex and  

34:40

power over women are a way of showing dominance  and force so it's a bit of a long-winded way of  

34:47

answering the question but i agree with you  but i see it at a number of different levels  

34:53

thanks so much kate yeah thank you kate that was  an amazing answer so we have a question from the  

34:59

chat from mac and his question is is do you think  that adding a clause within the legal profession  

35:06

uniform laws would help to create cultural change  within the legal profession and ensure that there  

35:11

are greater consequences for sexual harassment  within the profession and he provides an example  

35:16

um suspension or removal from the bar so with  that rule uh for both solicitors and barristers  

35:24

that if there's an allegation that somebody's  breached that law or acted or that rule or  

35:30

acted inconsistently then a person can make a  complaint to the legal services commissioner  

35:36

and that complaint will then be investigated  and if the complaint is sufficiently serious to  

35:44

warrant it being referred to the tribunal for  disciplinary action and the tribunal makes a  

35:50

finding of professional misconduct then  the legal practitioner can be struck off  

35:57

if the tribunal makes a finding that it's  unsatisfactory professional conduct so slightly  

36:02

less serious than the professional conduct  then the legal practitioner can be reprimanded  

36:08

given cautions be required to pay a fine in  some cases to undergo education or training  

36:17

to be assigned a mentor to issue an apology so  there's a range of remedies that are available  

36:23

but those remedies really are a remedy for the  profession to sanction the legal practitioner  

36:30

there's very limited remedies for victims  of sexual harassment through that process  

36:36

so the idea of having professional conduct rules  is one of the functions is to create deterrence  

36:45

and to say to other legal practitioners if you  behave like this then you too may be subject to  

36:51

sanction and lose your opportunity to practice as  a legal practitioner so deterrence is important  

36:58

but probably deterrence is not of itself enough  to achieve cultural change so i think it would  

37:04

be very difficult to put in professional conduct  rules a requirement to change your cultures that's  

37:11

really got to come from the profession itself and  the profession rather than just the individuals  

37:17

in terms of changing culture so it's a good  suggestion but i think it needs something more  

37:23

we used to have a compulsory every three years  training and i've done a lot of those training  

37:30

courses for lawyers over the time and i've had  reactions from male lawyers sitting in the front  

37:36

row saying for example i'd love to be sexually  arrest or immediately picking up the newspaper  

37:43

and starting to read the newspaper when i started  to speak about the issues so i think there's an  

37:48

element to how far can you force people to uh be  responsive to it and you have to be very creative  

37:56

in how you work on cultural change rather  than just imposing rules on people but it's  

38:02

a great question yeah i agree i think that's so  interesting um we've got a live question from  

38:08

eliza so thanks eliza um hi kate thanks for the  thanks for the talk i think um yeah maybe looking  

38:16

to that cultural shift again do you think it's  something that can be brought about by new lawyers  

38:21

entering the workforce or do we need to have  sort of that top-down approach for it to sort of  

38:27

solidify great question eliza thank you and it's  probably a mixture of things you definitely need  

38:35

top down so the statements from the chief justice  of the high court and the chief justice of the  

38:42

supreme court and other courts is really important  but i think it also comes from new lawyers coming  

38:50

in now and that reminds me like a few years ago  probably about four years ago i was on a panel  

38:56

which was actually at the uts old law school  so maybe that might be more than four years ago  

39:02

and it was an intervarsity um session for women  law students and we were talking about sexual  

39:10

harassment and on the panel we said to each  other do you think we should sort of like  

39:14

tell them the real news what it's really like  and so we decided to start okay i'm just going  

39:20

to start by asking a question so probably about 60  people in the room and my question was before we  

39:26

start this panel i want to ask you this how many  of you feel that in the first five years of legal  

39:33

practice you might experience sexual harassment  and much to my surprise and perhaps sadness  

39:41

maybe about 50 of people in the room put their  hands up but not the three men who were there  

39:48

they were okay and then i asked the question in  the first five years of legal practice how many  

39:55

of you think you will know someone who experiences  sexual harassment and pretty much 90 of the whole  

40:02

room put their hands up now the difference  is when i was a law student in the 1980s  

40:09

if you if someone had asked me that question i  would not have put my hand up for either of those  

40:14

because i it was unimaginable for me as a law  student that when i finished my law degree  

40:21

and i worked really hard and i was going to go  into work it just was not even in my thinking  

40:26

that i would experience sexual harassment  or i don't even know anybody who would do  

40:30

that and i was sort of disappointed on  one level that this was the response of  

40:38

prospective women lawyers but at the same time  i'm sort of pleased because you're going into it  

40:46

knowing this could happen to you and i hope that  will give you more tools to call it out to do  

40:52

something about it and not be fearful that because  you are the recipient of misconduct therefore  

40:58

the shame has to stay with you or you can't  do anything about it so i really think there's  

41:04

a great opportunity for people coming to the  profession to really stab their foot down about  

41:10

what's acceptable and what's not but we still need  those you know the senior leaders to be able to  

41:15

speak out and not condone that type of behaviour  so it's a really good question thanks eliza  

41:22

thanks kate and eliza um and i think the next  question from madeline really leads really nicely  

41:27

from that and her question is that although every  profession would benefit from increased education  

41:33

regarding sexual harassment in the workplace she  asks whether you think there is a place um for  

41:38

additional training starting from the university  level particularly in law schools to institute  

41:43

a more long-term structural cultural change yeah  i think i think that's a great question actually  

41:50

because um training and awareness is really  important and it's not that you do it once  

41:57

but it's got to be ongoing and it has and then  the the outcome of training has to be reinforced  

42:05

we've looked a lot over the last few years  about what type of training actually works  

42:09

and just sort of giving a lecture about what  the law says is not good enough and so often  

42:15

the best training in this area comes from people  having to be put in the shoes of somebody else  

42:22

to uh have an appreciation of what it feels  like or what you would do in those circumstances  

42:28

and i think you in the context of law  students and university life we know that  

42:34

sexual harassment occurs on campus and kate  jenkins has also done a very detailed report  

42:40

there but i think being prepared for  professional life whereas at law school  

42:45

for the most part all of your colleagues  are this around about the same age  

42:49

but once you move into the bar or law firm  perhaps less so in in-house or in community legal  

42:57

sectors or government but in the sort of more  old-fashioned area of law people that you work  

43:04

with will be the same age as your grandparents or  your parents and i think knowing how to deal with  

43:13

relationships with much older and more powerful  people and being able to know what are appropriate  

43:20

boundaries is probably a good thing because at law  school you're looking at a much flatter structure  

43:26

but really go into the hierarchy when you start to  get into professional practice so i think that's a  

43:32

good idea in terms of saying how do you prepare  for professional practice and professional life  

43:38

and what might be the issues that you have to  confront both from an ethical and personal basis  

43:44

yeah great thank you kate so everyone we've got  about 10 minutes left of discussion so if anyone  

43:48

has any more questions please pop them in the  chat but our next question is from monica and  

43:53

she asks whether you think that quotas within the  legal profession may have a positive or negative  

44:00

impact on the profession in terms of changing  the culture that we've been discussing tonight  

44:05

uh the answer is yes i do uh and i think a lot of  us have been a bit sort of nervous about putting  

44:12

quotas in but there's quotas in this quotas and i  think part of it is being really targeted on the  

44:18

way in which quotas might work so i'll give you  an example where i think it's worked very well  

44:24

is again and you know i'm focusing a lot on the  bar but that's where the sort of you know some  

44:28

of the hard stuff happens is uh we have at the  present time about 23 percent of all barristers  

44:36

are women and we've found over time that of  the 23 of women barristers they do not get 23  

44:45

of the work and they certainly do not get 23 of  the value of the labor work coming to the bar  

44:52

so the law council of australia has had in  place what's called an equitable briefing  

44:57

policy and what that essentially does is uh  for law firms or governments or individuals  

45:04

or corporations who believe in diversity they  can sign up to the inevitable briefing policy  

45:11

and that means that when decisions are made about  briefing barristers that they consider up women  

45:18

our barristers and that they work to ensure that  

45:25

20 of all of the priests go to senior embarrassers  so that's women over 10 years practice  

45:31

and 30 go to junior women barristers and so  we've deliberately made them stretch targets  

45:38

we'll call them quotas and that the value  of the briefs also have to be comparable  

45:44

so don't just save all your prolono briefs up  for women but make sure that women will also be  

45:52

paid for the work that they do and this policy  has been in place for three years now and  

45:59

we've really seen a change because everybody  has to report to the policy so we're up to  

46:06

uh 30 percent of briefing for junior barristers  we're not quite there for the senior barristers  

46:12

but that's changed the culture in this sense that  it's forced firms to think about women barristers  

46:20

and not just say we'd love to breathe a woman  embarrassed well we just don't know where she is  

46:24

or we don't know if there's anyone good enough but  it's really sort of forced uh briefing entities  

46:31

to look at the talent and what it's actually done  is increase the overall talent and the experience  

46:37

for barristers because it now means it's a real  focus on who's best for the job rather now he's  

46:43

just the old maid of a friend of a friend and he's  my friend it's really brought excellence i think  

46:50

in terms of briefing practices across the board  so targeted targets and quotas i think can work  

46:56

quite well and i would like to see there to  be perhaps some targets in terms of judicial  

47:04

appointments both not only for women but also  from people from culturally diverse backgrounds  

47:10

and people with disability is really shake  up work where we have diversity in judiciary  

47:20

great thank you kate and um so  our next question is from georgie  

47:24

and she asks uh whether you think that perhaps  leveling out those hierarchical structures in  

47:30

private practices and other traditional legal  formats to an extent would be a worthwhile step  

47:36

to take in order to address these inappropriate  power dynamics within the industry  

47:41

yeah that's a good ques that's a really good  question and you know my easy answer to it is yes  

47:48

but when i think about it it's it's tricky  because law is one of these professions where  

47:56

you just don't learn at once and you know  everything law is continuous learning and  

48:01

continuous education and it's not only keeping up  to date with new law but there's a lot that goes  

48:08

into learning the practice of law to understand  the rules procedures to get the experience  

48:15

in terms of negotiation experience working  with clients and that really comes over time  

48:22

and so a lot of the structures really reflect uh  the long learning and the lifetime learning and  

48:30

development of legal skills so it's you know it's  tricky to sort of say you'd immediately flatten it  

48:36

but what you can do is look at the way in which  work is organized in law firms or at the bar  

48:43

to try to give people a fairer go and  to look at ways of creating equality  

48:50

and so that's quite a complex process because  you have to look very carefully at what the  

48:55

particular environment is so for example coming  back to the bar the chief justice of the federal  

49:00

court encourages senior barristers like me if i'm  in court and i've got a junior barrister with me  

49:07

to allow that junior barrister to  have a speaking role at court in court  

49:11

and that then increases opportunities there so in  that way that helps to flatten out the hierarchy  

49:17

but we really sort of have to pick the  particular area as to how we might do that  

49:23

yeah great thank you kay um i'm not sure if anyone  has any more questions in the chat but while we  

49:27

wait if anyone has any other questions i have a  question that i could ask oh jokes tian has asked  

49:32

a question so we can use her question instead  of mine we'll save mine for later if we need it  

49:36

um so sato so tian asks um that she's read a lot  of your work firstly and it feels very privileged  

49:42

to be listening to your insight so that's really  lovely so she asks how can we assure ensure more  

49:47

women reach leadership positions because where  this occurs women's issues are being are better  

49:52

reflected in those workplace particularly as so  many things still weigh unequally against women  

49:58

such as primary care taking maternity leave etc  essentially stopping women from climbing up the  

50:03

ladder and then not to mention the sexual  harassment issues that we've been talking  

50:07

about today that have that forced women out of  the legal profession so a couple of things you've  

50:12

got to be brave and strong the law is a wonderful  career and a wonderful profession for women to go  

50:19

into and there's lots of opportunities there but  you have to be brave and you have to be persistent  

50:26

and uh you have to be prepared to overcome  hurdles but my big message to all of you is  

50:33

that when we talk about the issues or the problems  for women in the profession i do not want women  

50:39

lose to be seen as downtrodden you know hapless  ladies who need help we're very strong in our  

50:47

profession there's a lot of very strong women  in the legal profession and i don't want you  

50:52

to just think everything is about overcoming  hurdles there's wonderful opportunities for  

50:58

women in the profession and part of it is being  very strategic in how you plan your career so  

51:05

first of all yes you can be very concerned about  are women disadvantaged because they may still  

51:11

have the primary caring role and what does this  mean well let me put this in perspective for you  

51:17

for you uh who young women who will be starting  your legal careers in the near future you are  

51:24

going to be working for 45 years so it does not  matter whether you have a year off here or there  

51:34

and so women can take perspective in a way  perhaps that some of our male colleagues see  

51:41

rising in ambition as a bit of a race you don't  have to do everything in the first five years  

51:49

and the skills that women acquire in understanding  systems and organization managing families and  

51:56

relationships are the very skills that make  you a good lawyer to be able to understand the  

52:03

experience of clients both commercial personal  in their lives their disputes really important  

52:11

so as women um developing their own lives those  skills can be very important to being a lawyer  

52:20

so being a lawyer is not a race you're not going  to be the chief justice in the first 10 years you  

52:27

may not only be the chief justice in the 20 years  but you're able to take your time so for women  

52:34

i think it's about setting your own race in your  own speed and see that going in and out of the law  

52:42

at different points in time can be a real benefit  and so i would like you to sort of think about it  

52:48

as a very sort of positive way forward rather than  what do i have to achieve as quickly as possible  

52:55

you know and if you've got to be working for 45  years you need to be able to continually learn  

53:01

continually challenge continually enjoy  not just be worn down by it and so  

53:09

really think about being flexible in how you want  to be a lawyer and what you might do in the law  

53:16

amazing thanks kate so if anyone has any extra  questions they would like to they please pop  

53:22

them in the chat we're about to we've probably  got enough time for another one more question  

53:25

if anyone has one otherwise i can ask mine um so  maybe i'll ask my question if no one has any other  

53:34

ones so i was going to ask you kate um obviously  this year i feel like we've seen a lot of  

53:40

um issues to do with sexual harassment and sexual  assault emerging from parliament in particular in  

53:45

light of britney higgins and particularly  that christian porter claim which obviously  

53:49

has quite a big link to the legal industry i was  wondering what you thought about how much policy  

53:55

considerations and the way that the government  approaches sexual harassment and sexual assault  

54:01

impacts professions in general but particularly  the legal industry and whether that has any effect  

54:06

and the way the government approaches these  issues has any effect on how certain professions  

54:12

might respond in their proactive approach to  the issue um that's a really tricky question  

54:19

thanks for that one i think that i think  the answer is how governments respond  

54:26

on all issues are really critical in setting the  tone for the community and setting expectations  

54:33

for the community and particularly our politicians  and lawmakers or our senior members of the  

54:39

judiciary or in the legal profession we look to  them as role models so when we sort of see our  

54:47

leaders falling short or seeming to be insensitive  on issues around gender or the way in which women  

54:54

are treated that has a flow-on effect in terms  of the type of behavior that the rest of the  

55:00

community think is acceptable or not acceptable  and i i really sort of get this sense that  

55:08

um and this is the 730 lee sales did a series  on this last week women are really angry and the  

55:15

anger is when you're not listened to and you're  not treated with respect that makes you angry  

55:22

in the past women just probably suck that up  and just said we've just got to get on with it  

55:28

but i think now because there are women  politicians and women senior judges and senior  

55:33

women in the legal profession is that you've  got a combination of the women who are prepared  

55:38

to step up and say this is not right really  countering back against some of the behaviour  

55:45

and the everyday sexism and really looking  at bringing back a values-based approach  

55:51

to the way in which we want our society to be and  the respect that we wish to have for each other  

55:58

so i do think there is that tension there  that sometimes the politicians can show us  

56:04

the worst of behaviour and we see that  and say we don't want to be like that  

56:08

but we also need to look at when politicians and  particularly our women politicians are really  

56:15

really trying very hard to affect change and  know that they are often up against it as well  

56:23

and i think shining the light on what's happened  in parliament house has really given a sense that  

56:28

it's a pretty hard environment for women to  be in but if we did not have those women there  

56:34

it would be much worse so we need to support  those women while they're in the parliament  

56:40

to be able to make the change and i think the  same in the judiciary and the same in the senior  

56:45

branches of the legal profession um and this is um  this is an ongoing thing i mean some of you might  

56:53

have watched this week we've had the national  summit on women's safety and violence and it's  

56:59

been a very sort of interesting exercise and a lot  of criticism amongst the politicians are it's not  

57:05

going far enough and we're not doing that i think  it's fair enough to be critical but it's also  

57:10

important to support the politicians that are  trying to affect change and um and to know that  

57:18

they do represent us and that we should  have trust and confidence in them as well  

57:23

that's a hard thing to say because you know some  politicians like them but i think we really have  

57:28

to think about uh supporting those women who can  change the law and make a real difference for us  

57:35

thank you so much for answering that kate  and thank you to everyone who contributed  

57:38

your questions to the discussion that wraps  up our discussion portion of tonight so um to  

57:45

kind of conclude the event on behalf of the uts  faculty of law the uts law student society and  

57:51

all the students here tonight i would like to  thank you kate for coming here tonight to share  

57:55

your knowledge and comments with us um in light  of much of the current discussion surrounding  

58:00

sexual harassment consent education and the way  workplaces can address this issue it has been so  

58:06

fantastic to hear your insights tonight as future  lawyers i'm sure i can speak for all the attendees  

58:11

here that your presentation tonight has educated  us all on the areas where change has but and also  

58:17

still needs to occur as well as instilling in all  of us present here tonight a desire to contribute  

58:23

to meaningful change as we enter the profession  thank you for all you have done in spearheading  

58:28

these changes as well as taking your time to  share your knowledge with us tonight thank  

58:32

you again thank you also to crystal mac renata  elise erica and the entire brennan and social  

58:38

justice team for helping to administrate the event  tonight thank you to as well to our dean leslie  

58:43

hitchens and the other members of the faculty  of law for joining us here tonight a reminder  

58:48

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

58:53

we also encourage all of you here today to engage  with this topic through further reading which you  

58:58

can reflect upon for roj points by submitting 350  words to career hub um i'd also like to remind you  

59:05

all to keep your eyes peeled for our final justice  talk for the year which will be held on the 6th  

59:10

of october and will cover pursuing a career in  social justice so thank you again to kate and to  

59:16

everyone for attending today and i will quickly  pass back to renata to make some final comments  

59:22

thank you georgina for such great sharing i would  also like to add my very sincere thanks to kate  

59:29

eastman we really appreciate you taking the  time out of your busy schedule to talk to us  

59:35

about this very important topic it's really um  a wonderful thing to be able to get a view from  

59:41

the inside of the profession in listening to  your talk tonight i'm very much thinking about  

59:47

the structures of the legal profession that you  have highlighted as significant to the problem  

59:52

and thinking about how much they're  really reflected in other institutions  

59:57

including the university i'm also struck by the  fact as you stated that one of the key findings of  

60:04

the respected work study was that there is a low  awareness of what constitutes sexual harassment  

60:11

this would also point to the need for our lawyers  our future lawyers to have a broader education  

60:18

i think these are the very things that we're  addressing here at uts and via this very program  

60:25

now i'm sure that everybody is thinking about  different aspects of what you have spoken about  

60:30

tonight but that's a reflection of how rich your  presentation has been so my thanks i also would  

60:40

like to thank a few other people uh thanks to the  co-directors georgina and mack um and also our  

60:49

tireless administrator crystal mclaughlin without  whom these events will truly not be possible  

60:55

um a really big thanks to all the members of the  faculty who are here tonight for their support of  

61:01

both the program and the topic and finally thanks  to everybody in the audience for your active  

61:08

involvement in this very important discussion and  crystal if you could just put up that final slide

61:16

um i just want to say that if anything  we have discussed here tonight has raised  

61:25

any issues for you on this slide you will  see reference to a number of resources  

61:31

that may be of help there both inside and  outside of uts so good night everyone stay safe  

61:41

and we look forward to seeing  you at our very next event

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