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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
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you're stronger than someone else that sexual harassment can be a result because sex and
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power over women are a way of showing dominance and force so it's a bit of a long-winded way of
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answering the question but i agree with you but i see it at a number of different levels
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thanks so much kate yeah thank you kate that was an amazing answer so we have a question from the
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chat from mac and his question is is do you think that adding a clause within the legal profession
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uniform laws would help to create cultural change within the legal profession and ensure that there
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are greater consequences for sexual harassment within the profession and he provides an example
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um suspension or removal from the bar so with that rule uh for both solicitors and barristers
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that if there's an allegation that somebody's breached that law or acted or that rule or
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acted inconsistently then a person can make a complaint to the legal services commissioner
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and that complaint will then be investigated and if the complaint is sufficiently serious to
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warrant it being referred to the tribunal for disciplinary action and the tribunal makes a
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finding of professional misconduct then the legal practitioner can be struck off
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if the tribunal makes a finding that it's unsatisfactory professional conduct so slightly
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less serious than the professional conduct then the legal practitioner can be reprimanded
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given cautions be required to pay a fine in some cases to undergo education or training
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to be assigned a mentor to issue an apology so there's a range of remedies that are available
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but those remedies really are a remedy for the profession to sanction the legal practitioner
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there's very limited remedies for victims of sexual harassment through that process
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so the idea of having professional conduct rules is one of the functions is to create deterrence
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and to say to other legal practitioners if you behave like this then you too may be subject to
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sanction and lose your opportunity to practice as a legal practitioner so deterrence is important
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but probably deterrence is not of itself enough to achieve cultural change so i think it would
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be very difficult to put in professional conduct rules a requirement to change your cultures that's
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really got to come from the profession itself and the profession rather than just the individuals
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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
English
AllFrom University of Technology SydneyRecently uploaded
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Kate is a UTS Law alumna, who shared her insights with UTS Law students on the systemic nature and extent of sexual harassment in the legal profession. Discussing the impact of the #UsToo Report from the International Bar Association and the 2020 Respect@Work Report on the legal profession, Kate suggested strategies for the empowerment of victims of sexual harassment within legal settings, and mechanisms that can be implemented within legal organisations to reduce its occurrence.
Kate Eastman AM SC has 30 years’ experience in dispute resolution and advocacy in a wide range of legal areas, including employment, discrimination and human rights law. Kate has been involved in sexual harassment law, policy and practice for many years, starting with her work with Dame Quentin Bryce AD the then Sex Discrimination Commissioner on a campaign to educate women about their rights at work in 1989.