The Australian Women's Register

The Honourable Justice Shan Tennent was appointed a Judge of the Supreme Court of Tasmania in 2005, making her the first woman to be appointed in the state’s (then) 180 year history. She is (in 2016) the second longest serving judge on the jurisdiction after the current Chief Justice The Hon Justice Alan Michael Blow, OAM.

Shan Tennent was interviewed by Nikki Henningham for the Trailblazing Women and the Law Oral History Project. For details of the interview see the National Library of AustraliaCATALOGUE RECORD.

Lyma Nguyen, an advocate whose earliest memories stem back to the Indonesian refugee camp in which she was born, has devoted the better part of her young life to human rights; she has particularly concerned herself with advancing criminal justice domestically and in the international sphere. Nguyen practises at the Northern Territory Bar in Darwin and also appears before the Khmer Rouge Tribunal (the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC)). In 2009, Nguyen became the first Australian woman to be admitted as International Counsel for Civil Parties in the ECCC. She acts on behalf of ethnic Vietnamese Cambodians – as well as foreign nationals from Australia, New Zealand and the United States – who suffered during the Khmer Rouge regime. In recognition of indefatigable, pro bono work for the rights of ethnic minority Vietnamese in Cambodia, Nguyen was awarded an Australian Prime Minister’s Executive Endeavour Award in 2013.

Lyma Nguyen 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 Adelaide, Her Honour Judge Sue Oliver was admitted as a solicitor and barrister of the Supreme Court of South Australia in 1978 and then promptly moved with her (then) husband to Darwin, where she has lived ever since. She was appointed to the Northern Territory Magistrates Court (now called the Northern Territory Local Court) in 2006, after having practised law in a variety of public and private sectors contexts. As managing magistrate of the Northern Territory Youth Justice Court in the Northern Territory, she has a particular interest in and has published widely on matters relating to the complex issues surrounding the management of young offenders.

Since arriving in the N.T., Oliver has also contributed her time and energy to a variety of community and national organisations. These include the Family Planning Association, the YWCA, the International Legal Services Advisory Council, Commissioner for the NT Legal Aid Commission, committee member NT Law Society and Board Member of the Australian Women Lawyers. She is presently a member of the Country Women’s Association in Katherine.

Sue Oliver 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.

The Hon. Justice Hilary Penfold has enjoyed a distinguished career in the public service and as a member of the judiciary. After becoming the first woman in Australia to hold the position of First Parliamentary Counsel, she achieved the further distinction of becoming the first woman to be appointed as Commonwealth Queen’s Counsel. She later became the first resident woman judge of the Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory. Penfold’s contribution to the public service, to drafting and to the development of law in Australia has been immense.

Hilary Penfold 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 Janine Pritchard was appointed to the Supreme Court of Western Australia on 11 June 2010. She was elevated to this position after a year as a Judge of the District Court of Western Australia, during which period she served as Deputy President of the State Administrative Tribunal. Prior to her appointment to the District Court, Justice Pritchard had worked in the WA Crown (now State) Solicitor’s Office (since 1991).

Known for her powerful intellect and work ethic, Justice Pritchard has been an important role model for women planning to combine a career in law, and in the judiciary in particular, with family responsibilities. Her first child was present at her swearing in ceremony; her second was born after her appointment. While she acknowledges the challenges of maintaining a demanding career with a ‘hands on’ approach to family life, Justice Pritchard has demonstrated that working arrangements for the judiciary are capable of accommodating family friendly policies, such as maternity leave.

Janine Pritchard 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.

A former Australian Young Lawyer of the Year, Zoe Rathus is Director of the Clinical Legal Education Program and Senior Lecturer at Griffith University’s Law School in Queensland. She was previously a solicitor, and then co-ordinator, at the Queensland Women’s Legal Service, in whose establishment she played an integral part. In 2011 Rathus was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia for service to the law, particularly through contributions to the rights of women, children and the Indigenous community, to education and to professional organisations.

Zoe Rathus 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.

Margaret Thornton is an acclaimed feminist academic in the field of feminist jurisprudence, discrimination, equal opportunity and gender studies at the Australian National University’s College of Law. She has degrees from the Universities of Sydney and New South Wales and Yale University. A prominent thinker and legal researcher, Thornton was the first female law professor to be appointed at La Trobe University in Victoria, Australia; during her academic career she demonstrated a significant commitment to the development of La Trobe’s law school. Thornton founded the Feminist Legal Action Group and convened the first feminist jurisprudence conference in Australia. She has participated in numerous consultations with agencies such as the International Labour Organisation, and advised parliaments on legislation. She has also published widely. Motivated by social justice and a desire for equality, Thornton has been steadfast in her efforts to improve conditions for women in society, particularly in the workplace and in educational institutions.

Margaret Thornton 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.

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.

Dr Hannah McGlade is a Nyungar human rights lawyer and academic who has published widely on many aspects of Aboriginal legal issues, especially those affecting the lives of Aboriginal women and children. Winner of the West Australian NAIDOC Student of the Year Award in 1996 (she followed this up in 2008 with the NAIDOC Outstanding Achievement Award), she was the first Aboriginal person to graduate from Murdoch University; she was also the first Aboriginal woman to graduate from a Western Australian law school when she graduated LLB (Murdoch) in 1995. She was admitted as a Solicitor and Barrister of the Supreme Court of Western Australia in 1996. In July 2016 she was appointed as a Senior Indigenous Research Fellow at Curtin University. In 2016, she has been a Senior Indigenous Fellow at the United Nations Office of the High Commission for Human Rights in Geneva, attending and assisting The Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (EMRIP).

As well as publishing prolifically, McGlade has served on many tribunals, boards and committees throughout her career, including the board of the Healing Foundation, a national Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisation with a focus on building culturally strong, community led healing solutions to Australian Indigenous people by reconnecting them back to their culture, philosophy and spirit. She played a leading role in the return of historically significant lands, being the former Sister Kate’s Children Home, where she had been a child resident, to the local community and also in the establishment of the Noongar Radio station serving as the Managing Director of Noongar Media Enterprises in 2008.

Her tireless advocacy on behalf of Aboriginal women led in 2013 to the establishment of the first ever service in Perth for Aboriginal victims of domestic violence. Named Djinda, a Noongar word meaning stars and in memory of the women whose lives have been lost to violence, the service is delivered in conjunction with the Women’s Law Centre and provides support to victims of family violence in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities of metropolitan Perth. In 2016 McGlade remain an adviser to the service.

Hannah McGlade was interviewed by Nikki Henningham for the Trailblazing Women and the Law Oral History Project. For details of the interview see the National Library of AustraliaCATALOGUE 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.

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.

May Moore was a successful photographer who worked initially in New Zealand and then in Sydney. She specialised in portraits of prominent people and artists, including society/celebrity portraits, with some wedding and children’s portraits. Moore is known to have introduced bromide paper and mounting boards to New Zealand.

Admitted as a Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Queensland in 1965, Patricia Conroy (nee Herlihy), established two partnerships with Martin Conroy in 1966 that have remained steadfast – marriage in July and then a business partnership in December. In the intervening period, the couple travelled to the remote north Queensland town of Mt Isa, where they established their firm, Conroy and Conroy Solicitors. Conroy was the first woman to practise in remote north-western Queensland, and she was one half of the first husband and wife partnership to practice state-wide, a partnership that endures still, in 2016.

Patricia Conroy was interviewed by Nikki Henningham for the Trailblazing Women and the Law Oral History Project. For details of the interview see the National Library of AustraliaCATALOGUE RECORD.