Lifting the Bar 2022

A cause for serious celebration!

Women Barristers' Association and Maddocks are thrilled to be collaborating on the Victorian edition of ‘Lifting the Bar’ 2022.

In 2016, the Law Council of Australia launched the Equitable Briefing Policy. A key target of that policy was to have women barristers briefed in at least 30% of all matters by 1 July 2020. While we are pleased to report that that target was achieved in the 2019 / 2020 year, with 31% of all briefs going to women and female junior barristers being briefed at a higher rate of 37%, there is much more work to do in raising the profiles of women barristers to continue to support equity in the legal profession.

‘Lifting the Bar’ profiles and celebrates the achievements of the many amazing female barristers in Victoria, from both a professional and personal perspective. While the publication is designed as a resource that enables procurers of legal services to easily search for women barristers with varying degrees of experience in a wide array of practice areas, it also provides personal insights from these talented women on everything from how they developed their careers and the touch points that inspired them to become a barrister to their amazing (and often quirky) talents outside of the office, ranging from martial arts expertise to rescuing pet chickens. Within the constraints of our COVID world, our barristers also share their experiences of recent courtroom technology success, as well as some failures, which make for highly amusing reading.

We hope that Lifting the Bar will provide another much-needed platform to highlight the expertise and inspiring stories of these barristers, and that it plays a role in growing the percentage of briefs to women barristers well beyond the existing target of 30%.

We would like to thank the female barristers featured in this publication for sharing their stories and are grateful for the opportunity to feature their profile. Over the coming months, we hope to expand and update the publication to feature many more inspiring women barristers

We hope you enjoy reading it as much as we did in putting it together.