The Australian Women's Register

Hilda Maude Maddocks, the sixth woman to be admitted to the New South Wales Bar, was educated at Fort Street Girls’ High School and the University of Sydney, where she graduated with a Bachelor of Laws in 1939 and was a student in the Faculty of Economics. When war broke out, she became honorary treasurer of the Law School Comforts Fund. At the time of her admission to the New South Wales Bar on 26 May 1939, she was employed in the legal branch of the Department of Road Transport & Tramways where her father, Sydney Aubrey Maddocks, himself a law graduate of the University of Sydney and formerly on the list of non-practising barristers at the New South Wales Bar, had been commissioner. Five years later, having joined the Commonwealth Crown Solicitor’s Office, she was admitted as a solicitor, on 26 May 1944. On 1 February 1962, Hilda Maude (now Catalano) was appointed legal officer, Crown Solicitor’s Office, Department of the Attorney-General and of Justice; her designation was altered to solicitor on 1 September 1962. She retired on 7 August 1973.

Jean Malor has the distinction of having been the first female student to graduate from the University of Sydney with first-class honours in Law. Although admitted to practise in 1937, Malor rejected going to the New South Wales Bar in favour of a career with the Law Book Company of Australasia Pty Ltd. (This may have been because her brother, Ronald, soon to be killed in the Second World War, was already a promising junior at the Bar). With the outbreak of war, she became honorary secretary of the Law School Comforts Fund. Malor remained at the Law Book Company until she was 60, rising to become senior legal advisor and senior editor and highly regarded for her knowledge and proficiency. In 1973, she was appointed chairwoman of the Commonwealth Computerisation of Legal Data Committee, one of a number of committees and professional organisations to which she gave much of her time and expertise over many years. Retained by Butterworths Pty Ltd in 1977, she was editor responsible for The Australian Current Law Digest and Commonwealth Statutes Annotations. She continued to work until she was in her 80s. On 3 June 1978, Malor’s prodigious legal knowledge and lifelong dedication as an editor were recognised when she was awarded an OBE for her services to the legal profession.

Patricia Audrey (Pat) Moore (formerly Voss, nee Kelly) initially worked as a pharmacist before becoming a highly regarded patent barrister of the New South Wales Bar and a senior member of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. She undertook the Materia Medica course at the University of Sydney and graduated in 1946. As a teaching fellow in pharmacy at the University, for a time the then Miss Patricia Kelly was the only woman on the School’s teaching staff. In 1950 she was president of the Women’s Pharmacy Association, which boasted over 100 members across New South Wales. In 1953 Moore (then as the recently married Mrs John Voss) left for London with her husband, a doctor: he to attend the Royal College of Physicians; she to pursue postgraduate study in pharmacy. She was admitted to the Bar on 4 June 1971 along with friend and fellow pioneer Priscilla Flemming, who became the first woman in private practice at the New South Wales Bar to take silk. She read with Ken Handley, who later took silk and became a judge of the New South Wales Court of Appeal, and she was frequently briefed by Pat Hinch, a well-known woman solicitor. Moore also served as a part-time member of the Social Security Appeals Tribunal.

Stephanie Pape (nee Prouting) worked for nearly a decade in the Public Solicitor’s Office in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, during which time she rose from the position of legal officer to that of deputy public solicitor. The then Prouting graduated from the University of Sydney with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1949, followed by a Bachelor of Laws degree in 1963. Despite being admitted to the New South Wales Bar, she did not practise as a barrister, working first at the Commonwealth Crown Solicitor’s Office before transferring to Port Moresby in 1964. On 26 June 1966, she married Richard Pape, author of Boldness Be My Friend (1953), which was an account of his wartime experiences as a prisoner of war. After returning to Australia, she joined the Attorney-General’s Department in Canberra.

Dr Klara Rudlow was a refugee who arrived in Australia on 24 September 1938 from Vienna where she had worked as a judge’s associate and journalist. Despite her experience, and being equipped with a Doctor of Laws from the University of Vienna (which she had obtained in 1933), her qualifications were not recognised in New South Wales and her facility with the English language was insufficient for her to obtain articles. It was not until 4 December 1953 that Rudlow, having undertaken the Barristers’ Admission Board course, was finally admitted to the Bar. In the intervening years she had worked as a translator and interpreter (she spoke several languages). Rudlow also broadcast and wrote on cultural and assimilation issues. In 1951 she travelled to Europe under the auspices of the International Refugee Organisation. She had scarce work at the Bar and coached students undertaking the Solicitors’ and Barristers’ Admission Board examinations as a means of augmenting her income. On 13 March 1959, Rudlow was admitted as a solicitor and from 1960 had her own practice. She subsequently lived and worked in Darling Street, Balmain for many years, volunteering for the Balmain Association and even standing for local government, although she was not successful.

Zena Sachs made a valuable contribution to the law and its practitioners during a long career in academia. The daughter of Jewish immigrants who had originally moved from Poland, she attended North Newtown Primary School and the academically selective Sydney Girls High School. Equipped with a secretarial qualification, in 1947 she went to work for Julius Stone, the then Challis Professor of Jurisprudence and International Law at the University of Sydney. Encouraged by Stone to undertake a university course, she embarked upon a law degree in 1946, graduating in 1950. On 1 December 1950, she was admitted to the New South Wales Bar. She did not practise, however, instead becoming Stone’s research (graduate) assistant and remaining with him for four decades. Stone dedicated Human Law and Human Justice (1965) to her in recognition of her inestimable support and diligent work. Sachs was a founding member and honorary secretary of the Women Lawyers’ Association (WLA) of New South Wales. Made a life member, she was honoured at the WLA’s 50th anniversary gala dinner at Parliament House in Sydney in 2002.

Joyce Shewcroft has been described as ‘the first female corporation lawyer in Australia’. She achieved the additional distinction of being the country’s first female chair of a credit union when she chaired the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) credit union, which she also co-founded. She was the first woman in New South Wales to qualify for the Bar through private study and the Barristers’ Admission Board examination. Admitted to the Bar on 29 May 1942 while in the employ of the ABC, she did not go into private practice until the late 1970s, instead remaining with the ABC for more than three decades, during which time she became its legal advisor. A motivated and able student, Shewcroft graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Sydney on 15 April 1953. She was secretary-treasurer of the PEN Club (Sydney branch), wrote prize-winning poetry, and scripts for radio. She was honorary legal advisor to the NSW Medical Women’s Association and the Royal Academy of Dance. Shewcroft succeeded Nerida Goodman (nee Cohen) as the second president of the Women Lawyers’ Association of New South Wales and was a member of the Association’s Research Committee. On 31 December 1977 she was awarded an OBE for services to the ABC and the law. Shewcroft was later appointed by the Australian Council For Overseas Aid as a commissioner of an Independent Inquiry into East Timor.

When self-government was conferred on the Northern Territory in 1978, Juliet Shields (nee Baxter), who had been employed as a clerk with the Northern Territory Administration of the Commonwealth Public Service, became responsible for the Commercial Division of the Territory’s new Department of Law. In a role which spanned almost 20 years, she managed numerous of the Government’s major commercial transactions. In 1951, Baxter (as she was then) was the recipient of a Commonwealth Scholarship; she was appointed as a junior clerk in the Public Trust Office in the same year. On 25 January 1954, Baxter commenced as a clerk (Professional Division) in the Crown Solicitor’s Office. Two years later, she graduated with a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Sydney. She was admitted to practice as a barrister (New South Wales) and solicitor (Northern Territory and High Court of Australia). In 1959, she married and moved to Darwin, where she worked for the then Crown Law Officer, Ronald (Ron) Withnall. At one time she was a chairperson of the Agents Licensing Board. Shields enjoyed a number of creative outlets, including acting and dressmaking.

Nancy Gordon Smith graduated with a Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of Sydney in 1959, followed by a Master of Laws degree in 1970. Although admitted to the Bar, she did not practise as a barrister. On 16 August 1964 she was admitted as a solicitor. At the time of her death she held the positions of Senior Solicitor and Deputy Secretary to the Reserve Bank of Australia.

The University of Sydney awards two prizes in Smith’s memory. The Nancy Gordon Smith Postgraduate Prize may be awarded annually on the recommendation of the Board of Postgraduate Studies of the Faculty of Law, University of Sydney, to the most proficient candidate for the degree of Master of Laws by coursework.

Patricia Smithurst Schlosshan was the daughter of Cyril Smithurst, a respected pharmacist in Gunnedah, north-eastern New South Wales, and his wife, Eileen. She attended St Mary’s College, Gunnedah and the University of Sydney, receiving a Sporting Blue in athletics for 1955 and graduating with a Bachelor of Laws degree in 1956. Although admitted to the New South Wales Bar, she did not practise as a barrister. Smithurst married American lawyer Dr Bodo Schlosshan whom she had met in London in 1956 and together they lived in Paris and New York before settling in Frankfurt am Main and raising a family of six. In 1967, Smithurst received a Master of Arts from Cornell University for her dissertation entitled ‘Heinrich Boll’s Concept of Reality, 1949-1960’.

Kathleen Trevelyan (nee Hayes) was an early chairman of the Discrimination Board and also served as an alderman at the Ku-ring-gai Council in the 1960s. Trevelyan attended New Zealand’s Epsom Girls’ Grammar in Auckland and studied Arts at Victoria College, Wellington. In 1938, she was appointed secretary of the Wellington branch of the Society for the Promotion of the Health of Women and Children, also known as the Plunket Society. After coming to Sydney in the late 1930s, she worked in Chalfont Chambers, later becoming associate to Mr Justice (later Sir) Bernard Sugerman of the Land and Valuation Court. During her associateship, she undertook a Bachelor of Laws degree at the University of Sydney, graduating in 1959. On 29 February 1957, she became the seventh woman to sign the Bar Roll of counsel and to actively practise at the New South Wales Bar. She had a broad practice with an emphasis on family law. In time she became the head of chambers at Parramatta. In the 1960s, she was honorary secretary and then vice-president of the Women Lawyers’ Association of New South Wales.

Robyn Bicket has enjoyed a long and distinguished career in the Commonwealth public service. She has represented the Australian Government in the United Kingdom and at the United Nations in Switzerland. She was the first lawyer in the Australian Department of Immigration to be posted to the Australian High Commission in London as First Secretary Immigration. She also has the distinction of having been the Department of Immigration and Citizenship’s very first chief lawyer. She has made a significant contribution to immigration and humanitarian policy, governance, public sector reform and management in Australia. In 2001 Bicket was awarded the Secretary’s Public Service Medal in the Australia Day Honours List, for services to the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs.

Robyn Bicket was interviewed by Kim Rubenstein in the Trailblazing Women and the Law Oral History Project. For details of the interview see the National Library of Australia CATALOGUE RECORD.

The Hon. Catherine Branson QC grew up in rural South Australia and went on to have a distinguished career in the law. The first woman in Australia (and probably in the common law world) to be appointed Crown Solicitor, she was also the first woman to be appointed permanent head of a government department in South Australia. Called to the South Australian Bar in 1989, Branson took silk in 1992. An appointment to the Federal Court of Australia followed in 1994; she served on the bench until 2008. In 2008, Branson became President of the Australian Human Rights Commission and in 2009 she was appointed Human Rights Commissioner.

Since retiring from the Commission in 2012, Branson has continued to work in the area of human rights at a number of organisations, including the University of Adelaide Law School, where she is Adjunct Professor, and the Melbourne-based Human Rights Law Centre, of which she is Director.

Catherine Branson was interviewed by Kim Rubenstein for the Trailblazing Women and the Law Oral History Project. For details of the interview see the National Library of Australia CATALOGUE RECORD.

Elizabeth Broderick AO was Australia’s longest-serving Sex Discrimination Commissioner, from 2007 to 2015. She was also Commissioner responsible for Age Discrimination from 2007 to 2011.

A former head of legal technology at law firm Blake Dawson Waldron (now Ashurst), where she practised for nearly two decades, she became the firm’s first part-time partner and later served as a member of its board. In 2001 she was named Telstra NSW Business Woman of the Year; she also received the Centenary Medal.

As Commissioner, Broderick instigated the, ‘Male Champions of Change’ strategy, to help advance gender equality in Australia. It has since been replicated across the country and achieved international prominence, thanks in part to Broderick’s subsequent appointment as Global Co-Chair of the Women’s Empowerment Principles Leadership Group, a joint initiative of the UN Global Compact and UN Women.

On behalf of the Commission, Broderick also conducted the first independent Review into the Treatment of Women in the Australian Defence Force. Broderick was named overall winner of the Australian Financial Review and Westpac 2014 ‘100 Women of Influence Awards’ in acknowledgement of her achievements while in office.

Broderick is Principal of Elizabeth Broderick & Co., Senior Advisor to the Australian Federal Police Commissioner on cultural change and Special Advisor to the Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and the Executive Director of UN Women on Private Sector Engagement. She serves on a number of boards and continues to advocate for societal change. In 2016 Broderick was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia. She was also named 2016 New South Wales Australian of the Year. She has honorary degrees from the University of New South Wales and The University of Sydney, and the University of Technology Sydney.

Elizabeth Broderick was interviewed by Kim Rubenstein for the Trailblazing Women and the Law Oral History Project. For details of the interview see the National Library of Australia CATALOGUE RECORD.

Jane Connors has had a distinguished academic career in which she has dedicated her scholarship and work as an international law practitioner to the betterment of United Nations (UN) treaty mechanisms and the rights of women and children.

After studying law and arts at the Australian National University in Canberra, she taught at the Canberra College of Advanced Education (now University of Canberra) before travelling to England, United Kingdom. There, she taught at the Universities of Nottingham and Lancaster, and at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies.

Drawn to the UN, in 1996 Connors was appointed Chief, Women’s Rights Section in the Division for the Advancement of Women in the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, UN. In 2009 she became Chief, Special Procedures Branch of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights; she was also later Director of the Research and Right to Development Division. Connors retired from the UN in March 2015.

Her commitment to international human rights continues with her role as International Advocacy Director Law and Policy for Amnesty International based in Geneva, Switzerland. She regularly teaches at universities around the globe, including at the London School of Economics where she is Visiting Professor in Practice.

Jane Connors was interviewed by Kim Rubenstein for the Trailblazing Women and the Law Oral History Project. For details of the interview see the National Library of Australia CATALOGUE RECORD.

A graduate of the University of Western Australia Faculty of Law, The Honourable Judy Eckert was the first woman to serve as president of the Law Society of Western Australia (1995-6). She was admitted as a legal practitioner in 1981 after completing her articles with Northmore, Hale, Davey and Leake (now Minter Ellison). In 1986, only four years after her admission, she became that firm’s first female partner.

In 1991, Eckert joined the WA Crown Solicitors Office, where she practised for eleven years and where she conducted a major review of the WA Legal Aid Commission. She joined the WA bar in 2002, the year she was also made a Life Member of the Law Society of Western Australia. In 2005 she was appointed a Judge of the District Court of Western Australia as a prelude to her appointment as Deputy President of the State Administrative Tribunal (SAT), sitting in the Human Rights stream. Regarded as one of Western Australia’s top legal minds, Eckert had a significant role to play in drafting the SAT legislation package which, at the time, was the largest piece of legislation ever to pass the WA parliament.

In 2011, ill health led to Eckert’s early retirement. In 2012, she was honoured at Women Lawyers Western Australia’s annual dinner for her contributions to advancing the status of women in the Western Australian legal profession.

Her Honour has three children and a husband who, she says, made it possible for her to pursue her legal career as far as she did. ‘I certainly would not have been able to become president of the law society if my husband hadn’t stayed home with the kids,’ she observed in 2004. Work/life balance issues are not ‘women’s issues’, she insisted: ‘they are management issues’.

Judy Eckert was interviewed by Nikki Henningham in the Trailblazing Women and the Law Oral History Project. For details of the interview see the National Library of Australia CATALOGUE RECORD.

Tracy Fantin is a Cairns based barrister and mediator who practises in planning and environment, administrative, employment and discrimination, succession and commercial law. She has worked on important coronial inquests and has experience working with Indigenous organisations and in native title.

Born and raised near Cairns, Fantin completed her education at Gordonvale State High School in 1982. Keen to undertake a combined Arts/Law degree, she moved to Canberra and graduated BA LLB (Hons) from ANU in 1987. She was admitted to practice as a solicitor in NSW in 1988 and practised in Sydney and London before returning to Cairns in 1994 where she became a partner and then consultant with local firm, Morrow Petersen Solicitors. She was called to the Bar in 2005. Fantin served as a sessional member of the Queensland Anti-Discrimination Tribunal for six years (2003-2009) and the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal for two years (2009-2011). She was a council member of the Bar Association of Queensland in 2014-2015 and is a member of the Australian Bar Association Diversity and Equality Committee.

Fantin has a history of involvement with community and advocacy organisations. She has served as a board member of Australian Women Lawyers (2004-2007), Women Lawyers Association of Queensland (2004-2007), Arts Law Centre of Queensland (1996-2001), Cairns Community Legal Centre and local arts organisations, and is a longstanding member of the Queensland Environmental Law Association and the Environmental Defender’s Office of Northern Queensland.

In 2016, Tracy Fantin was named the WLAQ Regional Woman Lawyer of the Year, in recognition of her promotion of women in the legal profession and her contribution to community organisations.

Tracy Fantin was interviewed by Nikki Henningham in the Trailblazing Women and the Law Oral History Project. For details of the interview see the National Library of Australia CATALOGUE RECORD.

Erika Feller has had an eminent career in international law, humanitarian protection and diplomacy. When she was appointed Assistant High Commissioner for Protection, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in 2006, she became the highest ranked Australian working in the United Nations at that time. In the ensuing years she undertook protection oversight missions to the large majority of the major refugee emergencies of recent years. She has been an ardent spokesperson for millions of vulnerable people throughout the world. Appointed a Fellow of the Australian Institute of International Affairs in 2013, in 2014 Feller was also named as Vice-Chancellor’s Fellow at her alma mater, the University of Melbourne.

In June 2021, Feller was awarded an AO for distinguished service to the international community, to the recognition and protection of human rights, and to refugee law.

Erika Feller was interviewed by Kim Rubenstein for the Trailblazing Women and the Law Oral History Project. For details of the interview see the National Library of Australia CATALOGUE RECORD.

Norma Clare Ford was interviewed by Kim Rubenstein in the Trailblazing Women and the Law Oral History Project. For details of the interview see the National Library of Australia CATALOGUE RECORD.

Admitted to practice in NSW in the early 1980s and having developed a strong reputation in personal injury law, Sally Gearin was recruited specifically to Darwin by the Northern Territory Attorney General’s Department in 1986.

Rising through the ranks to become a senior litigation solicitor, she was called to the Bar in late 1989 by the then Head of William Forster Chambers, Trevor Riley QC, later to become Chief Justice Trevor Riley.

Relishing the opportunity to back herself, and openly lesbian since 1978, Sally became the first woman to go to the Bar in the Northern Territory. She developed a vibrant practice and remained there for 20 years until her retirement in 2010. Having won more than 90% of her cases at trial, she was satisfied she had justified the faith of those colleagues who supported her early in her career.

Always active in pro bono, she worked with others to establish the first women’s refuge in Darwin in 1988 and helped establish community legal services and refugee advocacy in the 1990s. In 1992 she was awarded a fellowship to travel to the USA with Judy Harrison, another woman lawyer, to research responses to domestic violence. Their subsequent book and recommendations were a blueprint for policy responses in the mid 1990s both in the Territory and nationwide.

Sally currently (in 2016) sits as a part time legal member of a number of Tribunals in the Northern Territory.

Sally Gearin was interviewed by Nikki Henningham in the Trailblazing Women and the Law Oral History Project. For details of the interview see the National Library of Australia CATALOGUE RECORD.

After ten years as a partner at Norton Rose Fulbright, and four years prior to that at Bennett & Co., Jenni Hill is now (2016) a partner at the Perth office of international law firm, Clifford Chance. She is a litigation specialist, representing clients in the energy and resources sectors, and advising on corporate and shareholder disputes and investigations.

Committed to promoting equality of opportunity in the legal profession, Hill was a joint winner of the Western Australian Women Lawyers Association Woman Lawyer of the Year award in 2011. When at Norton Rose Fulbright, she chaired a Workplace Flexibility focus group. She is on the board of CEOs for Gender Equity, an initiative of the Western Australian Equal Opportunity Commission launched in 2014 to promote gender equity in the corporate sector. A woman who is ‘astute at picking her battles’ and developing strategies ‘for the long term’, she intends to change discriminatory corporate cultures by asserting influence from within.

Jenni Hill was interviewed by Nikki Henningham in the Trailblazing Women and the Law Oral History Project. For details of the interview see the National Library of Australia CATALOGUE RECORD.

Emeritus Professor Mary Hiscock was the first full-time female academic appointed to the Faculty of Law at the University of Melbourne. In 1972 Hiscock again made history when she became the Faculty’s first female reader. She was a pioneer of the study of comparative Asian Law, introducing Asian legal systems to students at the University of Melbourne for the very first time. Hiscock was later Chair of Law at Queensland’s Bond University, where she taught Contract and International Trade Law and was also Associate Dean (Research and Graduate Studies) from 1994 to 1997. She has been an expert adviser to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and a consultant to the Asian Development Bank; in addition, she has been a delegate to the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL). A member of the Australian Academy of Law, Hiscock is currently Emeritus Professor of Law at Bond University.

Mary Hiscock was interviewed by Kim Rubenstein for the Trailblazing Women and the Law Oral History Project. For details of the interview see the National Library of Australia CATALOGUE RECORD.

Rebecca Irwin holds the position of Senior Manager Government Relations and Public Policy at the global resources company BHP Billiton. An experienced leader and negotiator, she has served in the upper echelons of Australian government, including the Attorney-General’s Department and as a Senior Advisor to the Prime Minister, since graduating with first-class honours in Law from the University of Sydney in 1995. In May 2000, Ms Irwin made history when she became the first Australian woman lawyer to address an international tribunal, in her capacity as counsel for Australia in the Southern Bluefin Tuna Case against Japan. She has been a first assistant secretary in the Department of Immigration and Citizenship and in the Department of Agriculture; she has also been a senior executive working on national security and law enforcement policy with the Australian Federal Police and the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet in Canberra. A former associate to the Hon. Justice Margaret Beazley (later AO) of the Federal Court of Australia, Sydney, Ms Irwin practised as a solicitor at the law firm Mallesons Stephen Jaques. The recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship, she has a Master of Laws from Harvard Law School in the United States.

Rebecca Irwin was interviewed by Kim Rubenstein for the Trailblazing Women and the Law Oral History Project. For details of the interview see the National Library of Australia CATALOGUE RECORD.

Rosemary Kayess has devoted her career to the study and promotion of human rights and discrimination law in Australia and internationally. She has made a significant contribution to the disability rights movement. Currently a Visiting Fellow and Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Law at the University of New South Wales, Kayess was appointed to the Australian Government delegation responsible for drafting the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

Since 2009 Kayess has been a member of the AusAID Disability Reference Group; in 2010 she was appointed Director of the Human Rights and Disability Project at the University of New South Wales (UNSW). Kayess became Senior Research Fellow at the Social Policy Research Centre at UNSW in 2011.

Rosemary Kayess was interviewed by Kim Rubenstein for the Trailblazing Women and the Law Oral History Project. For details of the interview see the National Library of Australia CATALOGUE RECORD.

The Hon. Justice Susan Kenny was the first woman ever to be appointed to the Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of Victoria. Since 1998, she has been a judge of the Federal Court of Australia. Kenny is also a Presidential Member of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. An outstanding student who was educated at the Universities of Melbourne and Oxford, Kenny was associate for two years to the then justice of the High Court of Australia, the Rt Hon. Ninian Stephen. Soon after returning to the Bar, she took silk. It was while serving as a part-time commissioner for the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission that a judicial career beckoned. For many years, Kenny has worked with various administrative bodies which are concerned with judicial reform and education.

Susan Kenny was interviewed by Kim Rubenstein for the Trailblazing Women and the Law Oral History Project. For details of the interview see the National Library of Australia CATALOGUE RECORD.

Koula Kossiavelos is a magistrate of the Magistrates Court of South Australia. She has made a significant contribution to the Greek community, including as member of a long-standing steering committee which succeeded after ten years in establishing a Chair of modern Greek studies at Flinders University. She was a legal advisor and National President of the Pan-Arcadian Federation of Australia and an Australian delegate at the International Conference of Council of Hellenes Abroad. A former barrister and solicitor, she served articles with the firm Johnston, Withers, McCusker & Co before joining Martirovs, Kadis & Metanomski where she became a partner. Later establishing herself as a sole practitioner, she practised in a wide range of civil cases, including personal injury claims, family law, criminal-injuries compensation claims, civil litigation, industrial law and defamation. She continues to support community legal organisations and to promote a multicultural society.

Koula Kossiavelos was interviewed by Kim Rubenstein for the Trailblazing Women and the Law Oral History Project. For details of the interview see the National Library of Australia CATALOGUE RECORD.

The Hon. Justice Jane Mathews AO was the first woman to be admitted to full judicial office in New South Wales, and she has continued to pave the way for women lawyers on a number of fronts. Mathews became the State’s first female Supreme Court judge, as well as its first female District Court judge and its first Crown prosecutor. In addition to these positions, she has served as president of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal and on the bench of the Federal Court of Australia. Other roles have included president of the International Association of Women Judges, following her involvement in establishing the Australian chapter of the organisation, and deputy chancellor of the University of New South Wales. Patron of the Women Lawyers’ Association of New South Wales, Mathews was appointed an Officer in the Order of Australia for service to the judiciary, to the legal profession, to the University of New South Wales, and to music.

Mathews passed away on 31 August 2019. Recognised as a trailblazer in her field, prominent lawyers said the ‘”adored” and down-to-earth Mathews, who had a deep commitment to social justice, left an indelible mark on the legal profession and the women who followed in her footsteps.’

Jane Mathews was interviewed by Kim Rubenstein for the Trailblazing Women and the Law Oral History Project. For details of the interview see the National Library of Australia CATALOGUE RECORD.