The Australian Women's Register

Lea Armstrong was the first female Crown Solicitor appointed in New South Wales. Attorney General Gabrielle Upton today announced the appointment of Lea Armstrong as NSW Crown Solicitor.

“Ms Armstrong is an outstanding solicitor with 23 years’ experience in government and commercial law, including 18 years at the NSW Crown Solicitor’s Office,” Ms Upton said.

“Last year she became NSW Treasury’s first General Counsel and today she has achieved another milestone – becoming the first woman in the state to be appointed as a Crown Solicitor.”

Ms Armstrong has provided the NSW Government with advice on the development of the electricity network ‘poles and wires’ legislation passed by NSW Parliament last week. She has also advised on other major government projects including the long term leasing of the state’s three largest ports: Newcastle, Botany and Port Kembla.

During her previous period at the Crown Solicitor’s Office, she worked as General Counsel with a focus on major commercial transactions and reform projects for a range of clients including Treasury. She also served as an Assistant Crown Solicitor in commercial law and in administrative law.

Prior to joining the Crown Solicitor’s Office in 1995, Ms Armstrong worked for a major commercial law firm for three years and spent a year as an associate for the now retired High Court judge Michael McHugh.

Ms Armstrong holds a Masters of Law from the University of NSW, a Bachelor of Laws (Honours) and a Bachelor of Arts (Honours, First Class) from the Australian National University.

Ms Armstrong will begin serving as Crown Solicitor on 13 July 2015.

“I am extremely honoured to be the first female Crown Solicitor in NSW, particularly as I am following in the footsteps of the state’s first female Attorney General and Treasurer,” Ms Armstrong said.

“I think it is incredibly important for female lawyers and women in government to have positive role models who hold senior positions in the public service.

“There is no doubt it will be a huge challenge, but an exciting and rewarding one and I look forward to working broadly across the legal and government sectors over the coming months.”

The Crown Solicitor is the largest provider of legal services to the NSW Government and plays a vital role in the functioning of the state. It employs over 350 legal and support staff.

Rowena Armstrong AO QC is a consultant at Norton Rose Fulbright and focuses on government and parliamentary matters, interpretation of legislation and drafting of subordinate legislation. Before joining the Firm as a consultant, she was Chief Parliamentary Counsel for Victoria for 15 years.

Her Honour Patricia (Patsy) Wolfe served as Chief Judge of the District Court of Queensland between 1999 and 2014. She was the first woman to be appointed to the role. In 2014 she received the Order of Australia for her ‘distinguished service to the judiciary, to the law through legal education reform and as a mentor and role model for women’.

Patsy Wolfe came to law as a mature age student and mother, after first pursuing careers in medicine and journalism. She graduated LLB with honours from the University of Queensland in 1978 and was admitted to the Bar the same year. In 1979, she joined the Faculty of Law as a senior tutor and then went on to complete a Masters Degree in 1983. While senior tutor, she met Margaret White and Quentin Bryce and formed supportive and enduring friendships with them both.

Before being appointed to the District Court in 1995, Wolfe served as Deputy Commissioner of the Fitzgerald Inquiry Into Official Corruption (1988-89) and as a part-time Commissioner on the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (1993-95).

She is well remembered for her forthright comments made when she was chair of the Queensland Women’s Consultative Committee in 1992. When challenged as to why Queensland women needed such a committee, when there was no equivalent body for men, her response was direct and uncompromising. Men already had a powerful organisation, she said. ‘It’s called Cabinet, where men outnumber women sixteen to two…That’s why we need council as a direct line to the Premier.’

In 1982, Jean Austin became one of the most senior women in the Commonwealth Public Service: after almost three decades of service (during which she had acted as principal legal officer (common law) and then assistant deputy crown solicitor), Austin had attained the position of deputy crown solicitor in New South Wales. Austin attended Fort Street Girls’ High School and then went to the Deputy Crown Solicitor’s Office where she was engaged as a typist. She was appointed to the Commission of the Peace for the State of New South Wales in 1953.

Although she had originally wanted to be a surgeon, the relevant courses were overseas, and so she decided to study law, doing so on a part-time basis at the University of Sydney between 1950 and 1954. Her academic achievements saw her awarded the George and Matilda Harris Scholarship in both the second and third year of her degree. She graduated with a Bachelor of Laws in 1955 and was subsequently admitted to the Bar. She did not, however, practise as a barrister, believing that the better briefs – for women practitioners – were in the Crown Solicitor’s Office (now the Australian Government Solicitor). Austin was a Committee member of the Women Lawyers’ Association of New South Wales. In 1978 she was awarded an MBE for public service in the field of law.

Justice Mary Finn of the Family Court of Australia is a second-generation woman lawyer (third generation lawyer). Her mother was Clare Foley, Queensland’s fourth woman solicitor, who, in turn, was the daughter of an Ipswich lawyer, Edward Pender. Appointed to the bench of the Family Court in 1990, Justice Finn retired on her seventieth birthday, in July 2016.

Finn’s reputation as a drafter and developer of legislation, established during her career in the Federal Attorney-General’s office, was renowned. Lionel Bowen, federal Attorney-General 1984-1990, described her advice as both ‘practical and accurate’; he was known to ask regularly, when confronted with legislative challenges, ‘What would Mary think?’

Finn is well known for her contribution to the review of the Family Law Act 1975, completed in 1980, and for her contribution to committees established to implement the report’s recommendations. Her public service experience established her credentials as an expert in family law; at the time of her appointment to the bench in 1990 she was regarded as one of Australia’s leading experts on the Family Law Act.

Both of Finn’s children, Wilfred and Eugenie, are fourth generation lawyers, with Eugenie enjoying a special and rare status in Australian law as a third generation woman lawyer.

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.

Emeritus Professor Sally Walker AM was the first female vice-chancellor and president of Australia’s Deakin University. Prior to holding these appointments, she was senior deputy vice-chancellor at the University of Melbourne, where she was also president of the University’s Academic Board, member of the senior executive, and pro vice-chancellor. Walker established the pioneering Centre for Media, Communications and Information Technology Law (now Centre for Media & Communications Law) at the Melbourne Law School and was its inaugural director. While at the Law School, she was Hearn Professor of Law. Walker was also secretary-general of the Law Council of Australia for a time.

Appointed as a Member of the Order of Australia in 2011, in recognition of her contribution to education, to the law as an academic and to the advancement of women. In 2014 she was inducted onto the Victorian Honour Roll of Women. As a Principal at Deloitte, Walker continues to consult widely on strategic and leadership matters in the higher education sector.

Sally Walker 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 proud Tanganekald and Meintangk woman from the Coorong region and the south east of South Australia, Irene Watson was the first Aboriginal person to graduate from the University of Adelaide with a law degree, in 1985. She was also the first Aboriginal PhD graduate (2000) at the university, winning the Bonython Law Prize for best thesis. Her research motivation has been clear from the outset: to gain a better understanding of the Australian legal system that is underpinned by the unlawful foundation of Terra Nullius.

Watson’s work has made a significant impression on everyday legal practice in respect of centring an Indigenous perspective in the long processes of law reform. In 2015 she published Aboriginal Peoples, Colonialism and International Law: Raw Law the first work to assess the legality and impact of colonisation from the viewpoint of Aboriginal law, rather than from that of the dominant Western legal tradition.

Watson has been involved in the Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement in South Australia since its inception in 1973, working as a member, solicitor and director. She has taught in all three South Australian universities and was a research fellow with the University of Sydney Law School. She is currently a research Professor of Law at the University of South Australia and she continues to work as an advocate for First Nations Peoples in international law.

Watson was involved with the drafting of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples between 1990 and 1994 and has more recently, in 2009 and 2012, made interventions before the UN Human Rights Council Expert Advisory Committee of the current position of Indigenous peoples.

In 2016, Watson was appointed The University of South Australia’s inaugural Indigenous pro-Vice Chancellor.

Irene Watson 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.

Her Honour Nerida Wilson is a Magistrate based in the regional Queensland city of Mackay. Born, raised and educated in Cairns, her career in the law began in 1987 when she joined the Australian Federal Police, undertaking training in Canberra and then serving in Melbourne until 1994 when family circumstances brought her back to Cairns. In 1997 she fulfilled a childhood ambition to see the letters LLB beside her name by enrolling in law at Queensland University of Technology as a mature age student.

Upon graduation, Nerida worked as a solicitor in Mackay, (where she was by co-incidence, appointed to the bench in October 2015), before moving back to Cairns to practise. Nerida was called to the Bar in February 2008 and enjoyed a diverse practice in family, criminal and civil law. She also appeared at Inquests for parties and as Counsel Assisting the Coroner.

Nerida has been engaged in a number of important local community initiatives and organisations. She is a Past President of the Far North Qld Law Association and the Cairns Regional Domestic Violence Service. She lectured and tutored in family law at the Cairns campus of James Cook University. In the early 2000s Nerida developed an Annual Inter-Campus Moot Competition for students at James Cook University securing sponsorship for the event and attracting support from the local judiciary and senior legal practitioners.

Her standing in the community at large and capacity for managing change was acknowledged when she was elected President of the Cairns Golf Club in 2014, the first woman to hold the post in the club’s 90 year history.

Nerida’s contribution to the legal profession was acknowledged in 2013 when she was awarded the Regional Woman Lawyer of the Year Award by the Queensland Women Lawyers Association. She participated in the Queensland Women Lawyers ‘Ladder Program’ as a mentor for young women lawyers.

Her advice to all young women starting their careers in the law is to ‘Surround yourself with good people. Get good mentors early on – people that you can trust’. She counts Magistrate Tina Previtera amongst her mentors and one of the many ‘good people’ she was fortunate to meet. Her advice to all young people, regardless of whether they plan to be lawyers or not, is to ‘give life enough space to present opportunities to you. If we are too rigid, we are going to foreclose on so many rich, rich opportunities. Be open and embrace unexpected opportunities.’

Nerida Wilson 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.

Nerolie Withnall is a leading company director overseeing the direction and transformation of large Australian companies and institutions. She was the former Director of ALS, Alchemia Limited, PanAust and Computershare Communication Services Limited. A former Partner at Minter Ellison she was Chairman, Board of Queensland Museum and a member of the Council of the Australian National Maritime Museum and Board of the Australian Rugby Union. Withnall was also a long-term Member of the Takeovers Panel. Withnall made legal history becoming the first woman President of a Law Society in Australia.

Nerolie Withnall 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.

Her Honour Mary Ann Yeats was the first US citizen admitted to practice law in Western Australia and the second woman, after Her Honour Antoinette Kennedy AO, to become a Judge of the District Court. After studying law at the University of Western Australia, she was admitted to practice in 1982 and worked in the Crown Solicitors Office, until she was appointed a judge in 1993. In 1995 she served as President of the Children’s Court of Western Australia. She retired from the District Court Bench in August 2011.

As a judicial member of the Australasian Institute of Judicial Administration (AIJA) she spent 10 years as convener of the Indigenous Justice Committee, a group of judicial officers and Indigenous people working together to provide cultural awareness education to the judiciary throughout Australia. Appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in January 2014, for her significant service to the law, particularly Indigenous justice, she was initially uncomfortable about accepting the honour, feeling that the Indigenous people who helped her were not adequately recognised. She changed her mind when she realised how acceptance would draw attention to social justice issues that have been important to her throughout her personal and professional life.

Mary Ann Yeats 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.

Bev Reaston has practised law in Cairns since 1980 and was the first lawyer in the city to combine fulltime work with mothering after she had her first child in 1983. She has practiced exclusively in the area of Family Law in Far North Queensland for over thirty years, developing expertise across a wide range of areas including complex children’s matters, international relocations and high end property cases. She is (in 2016) the Queensland Representative of the Family Law Council of Australia. She was one of the first appointed Independent Children’s Lawyers in Cairns.

As well as working in private practice (most recently in partnership with her husband, Jim, and Deanne Drummond at Reaston Drummond Law) Reaston has been engaged with a number of community organisations, ranging from local kindergarten and sporting committees to community law services. She has served terms on the management committees of the Cairns Regional Domestic Violence Service, Legal Aid and the North Queensland Women’s Legal Centre.

Bev Reaston 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.

Robin Banks is the (2016) Tasmanian Equal Opportunity Commissioner, a position she has occupied since 2010.

Robin Banks 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.

Magistrate Tamara Jago (appointed to the bench in 2016) holds the distinction of being the first woman in Tasmania to be made Senior Counsel. Honoured by the 2010 achievement, she understood her promotion to be an important one for Tasmanian women, but also believed it went a long way to dispelling the myth that Legal Aid lawyers are ‘second rate options’. Furthermore, having spent the bulk of her career working as a Legal Aid lawyer in north-western Tasmania, she believed her appointment proved there was talent in regional centres, and that moving to big cities in order to ‘make it’ wasn’t always necessary. Taking silk while working as a Legal Aid Lawyer in regional Tasmania, was ‘something special,’ said Jago, the mother of three young children. ‘At Legal Aid there are criminal lawyers that are just as good as anyone else or better.’

Tamara Jago 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 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.

Mary (Mollie) Eugenie Whitehouse was the sixth woman to be admitted as a solicitor in Queensland, on 26 September 1939. She served her articles between 1930 and 1939 with a firm in Warwick, Queensland (Messrs Neil O’Sullivan and Neville), completing her legal studies via correspondence while caring for her sick father. Firmly believing that all women should have an occupation, he willingly financed her training.

Whitehouse attempted to join the armed forces during World War 2, but was excluded due to poor eyesight. After performing temporary work as a typist in an army records office, she was employed as a temporary legal officer in the newly established Crown Solicitor’s office in Brisbane. She left the office when she married Eric Whitehouse in August 1944. Mollie had six children, the first of which died at birth in 1945.

The Whitehouses purchased the Pender and Pender (later Pender and Whitehouse) in 1951. While raising five children, Mollie worked for the firm in a variety of capacities, increasing her workload once her youngest child started school. By the time they had all completed school, she was working full-time. She continued to practise until 1989, fifty years after her admission.

Mollie Whitehouse was a founding member of the Queensland Women Lawyers Association. She always regarded herself as ‘a lawyer who was a woman, not a woman lawyer’.

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.

The Honourable Margaret J. White was, in 1992, the first woman to be appointed to the Supreme Court of Queensland. Prior to coming to the Queensland bench, she enjoyed a distinguished academic career, first in South Australia and then in Queensland after she moved there in 1970. She retired from the bench in 2013.

In between her South Australian and Queensland ‘phases’, White instructed senior naval officers of the Royal Australian Navy in international law and the law of the sea. She was commissioned as Second Officer, thus becoming the first Women’s Royal Australian Navy Reserve officer to be commissioned since the end of World War Two.

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.

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.