It is our season finale! Can you believe? Thank you for joining us once again. We were so excited to have the opportunity to speak with the self-professed iced latte afficionado and fantastic human, Trent Wallace. Trent is a Wongaibon person raised on Darkinjung Country, and has a background working in the community legal sector, government and education.

Combining both legal and First Nations lived experience, Trent drives First Nations initiatives across the firm and provides thought leadership and education around cultural safety and awareness. Working across the social justice sector and corporate Australia, Trent seeks to embed key cultural considerations to create meaningful change for First Nations Peoples. In this work, Trent collaborates with a wide variety of clients to develop and execute First Nations initiatives.

Trent offers cultural awareness education and advice on how to work effectively with clients and also collaborates with People & Culture on programmes of attraction and retention to First Nations employees. As a lawyer, Trent is able to identify and mitigate risks to reputation through building a strong foundation of strategies to support cultural awareness.

Trent is Co-Chair of the Legal Profession Reconciliation Network and is on the Executive Committee of Just Reinvest NSW. In addition to these roles, Trent is also a Director of Metro Arts (QLD), Editorial Board Member for LexisNexis, Advisor to the Starlight Children's Foundation, Advisor to the Board of ActionAid Australia and is a lecturer in law and First Nations Peoples.

In this episode, we sit down with the indelible Rachel G. Barnard - our first non-lawyer guest, but a beautiful human with a heart for justice and equity. Rachel is a speaker and facilitator who has designed 100s of sessions for 1,000s of people to step into their greatness and contribute powerfully to the world around them.

As the founder of Young New Yorkers (YNY) she created the first arts-based Alternative-To-Incarceration program in NYC and assisted over 1,400 young people to exit the criminal legal system without an adult criminal record. In this role she partnered with—and created programs for—multiple criminal legal agencies including the Center of Court Innovation, Kings County DA's Office, NYC Department of Probation, and the New York Police Department. Over the decade Rachel led YNY she took it from a one-off project, to building it to be a go-to restorative sentencing option in NYC with a $1 million annual budget.

Rachel has been acknowledged in the media and received awards and fellowships. She holds a Master of Science in Advanced Architectural Design from Columbia University.

Digressions in this episode include the role of public art as a dialogue, ego, Rachel's favourite kind of jokes, and many insights into the power of partnership and collaboration with diverse communities to make social justice a reality. We are so grateful for the opportunity to meet with Rachel and to have the opportunity to hear from her practice wisdom and heart.

In this episode, we meet with emerging leader, and lawyer, Elizabeth Aisi (Liz). Liz was admitted as a lawyer in December 2022 after completing her Bachelor of Laws and Bachelor of Arts at the University of Queensland. In this episode, she shares about how she has worked towards building a career focussed on human rights. She was a co-founder of the ⁠University of Queensland's Human Rights Case Law Project⁠, a resource that collates 'case notes' for case law that mention Queensland's Human Rights Act. She has then paved a career for herself at Caxton Legal Centre, initially as a paralegal within Caxton's Bail Service, and later the family law service, to eventually being promoted to a solicitor within Caxton's Seniors Legal and Support Service.

Digressions in this episode include Liz's impersonation of a line from her favourite movie, Liz's open-mindedness framework, what it was like growing up in New York, and the impact of "micro-aggressions".

With nearly one year post admission experience under her belt, the sky is the limit for Liz, and we think she is a lawyer to keep an eye on! We definitely left this meeting feeling energised, and we know you will too!

SEASON FINALE | It is our season 2 finale of our podcast where the theme has been 'traversing inclusion and belonging in the law'. So we thought, what better way to round out our second season than by taking it right back to the beginning and re-meeting with our first two ever guests on our podcast, Linda Cho and the Honourable Judge Dzenita Balic (whom kindly let us dispense with formalities in addressing her Honour in this episode).

Linda Cho is a criminal lawyer, and at the time we record this episode, she elucidates to us about an internship she did in the United States, and also on her (at that time, future plans) plans to relocate. Linda, we miss you already! Judge Dzenita Balic, whom was a Magistrate when we met her on our first podcast with her, shared with us about her continued journey in actively promoting diversity within legal and justice spaces. It's always a pleasure to learn from and share with these two wonderful humans. Digressions include the exploring of adoption of English names to maybe create a sense of belonging/inclusion, the importance of pro bono work in our profession, and the need for diversity strategies to include everyone.

As this conversation has been published two months late, it's interesting to reflect on what's transpired since our conversation back in late November. One big topic of conversation is the reflection on the Culture and Law Moot, which is now back for its second year coming up on 20 March 2025. We would love to see you there! To join us or find out more, please visit: https://www.trybooking.com/CZBQE.

This is a beautifully reflective episode and a reminder that there is always work to be done and we each can contribute to that work. We are so pleased to be able to share this final episode despite our unplanned hiatus. We will return in the second half of 2025 with more episodes for you.

We laugh out loud and get deep with Hsuan An (Shannon) Chen, a criminal lawyer based in Brisbane. She has been in practice for nine years and in that time has worked in private practice, at Legal Aid Queensland and is presently a director of a boutique law firm, Hodgson Lawyers. Shannon has worked predominately in criminal law and has experience working on serious crimes such as murder, grievous bodily harm, and serious sex offenses.

As a solicitor advocate who appears in court almost daily, Shannon considers herself to offer and be something different from who you may consider typically seen advocating in court. She is Asian, queer, and may come across as non-binary but identifies as a female. These qualities she believes can be a blessing and a curse.

She was born and raised in Taiwan before moving to Australia with her mother when she turned 18 to study at the University of Queensland. Coming into law, Shannon has encountered lawyers and mentors who have inspired her and helped shape who she is as a lawyer. She is a client-oriented lawyer and does not shy away from having frank and honest conversation with her clients. She believes this is important to determine the best strategy for her clients.

Shannon was vulnerable and spoke candidly with us about many things. Some highlights for us were hearing about her struggles adjusting to the English language, her early exposure to seeing how people of diverse backgrounds shared space at her grandpa's shop, being misgendered in court, and having the courage to be who you are as a form of empowering others, and being the change you want to see.

We are beyond excited to bring you this episode recorded back in October 2024 with Debbie Kilroy OAM. Debbie is one of Australia’s leading advocates for protecting the human rights of women and children through decarceration – the process of moving away from using prisons and other systems of social control in response to crime and social issues.

Debbie's story may be familiar to some, and we cannot do justice covering off everything in the short time we had the privilege of sharing with her. Debbie was in prison during a brief period of reform, allowing her to access opportunities for education, employment and day release, sharpening her special skill to ‘think around corners’. During her time in prison, Debbie worked hard for a degree in Social Work and took on the huge task of turning her life around. Since then, she has qualified as a Gestalt Therapist and Legal Practitioner, and has completed a Graduate Diploma of Forensic Mental Health.

Debbie established Sisters Inside in 1992, which advocates for the human rights of women in the criminal justice system and responds to gaps in the services available to them. We encourage our listeners to visit the Sisters Inside website if they wish to volunteer or donate. Debbie was awarded the Order of Australia Medal for services to the community for working with women in prison in 2003, and then awarded the Australian Human Rights Medal in 2004. She was also grantedthe Churchill Fellowship to explore decarceration strategies and programs internationally in 2014.

We really enjoyed this conversation, and so glad to finally publish it!

In this episode, we sit down with Daniel Ajak. Daniel believes in using his law degree to impact positive change in society, be it in representing his clients or mentoring and creating opportunities for aspiring law students in his community and beyond. Daniel is a criminal lawyer based in Melbourne. He founded his firm Ajak & Associates which now boasts offices in Melbourne and now in Adelaide with dreams to expand nationally.

After graduating from Flinders university with a Bachelor of Laws, Daniel was admitted as a solicitor and a day later began working as a lawyer at Thomson Geer in Adelaide. However, in 2017 after seeing regular media coverage on African youth crime in Melbourne, he felt called to move to Victoria to be a role model for the younger people in his South Sudanese community.

He has largely worked as a criminal lawyer working with Papa Hughes Lawyers, Victoria Legal Aid, Salvos Legal before becoming a Director at Ajak, Wolan and Tut Lawyers which later became Ajak & Associates.

He credits one of his greatest achievements to be the co-founding of the African Australian Legal Network (AALN). The AALN seeks to is creating opportunities for aspiring law students and graduates from his community to get a foot in the door. The AALN was first convened in July 2018, and is now an incorporated association, the AALN is focused on the skills development, recruitment and retention of people of African descent in the Australian legal community.

The group has enjoyed success and support from oragnisations such as Victoria Legal Aid and the Office of the General Counsel, Department of Premier and Cabinet (Victoria), Castan Chambers and the Leo Cussen Centre for Law to name a few.

Daniel was awarded a 2020 Early Career Alumni Award by Flinders University for his significant contribution to the African-Australian community in Australia, including the development of professional networks and advocacy for African-Australian legal students.

In this episode, we sit down with Rose Inglis. Eight years ago, Rose left her "sensible" solicitor job and moved to London with her best friend, one suitcase, and a legal career she doubted she was cut out for. Almost five years later, she returned to Australia with an LLM from UCL, a husband, a global friendship network – and a whole new career.

In 2021, she founded Rose Tinted Law, a consultancy where she curates ‘alternative’ professional development content and sessions for confused, doubtful, jaded (or just plain curious) early-career legal professionals. Her aim is to inspire confidence and purpose in the next generation of legal leaders.If you’re an early career legal professional asking yourself ‘what next?’ or 'what's my why?' then Rose is someone you can turn to for unlocking your potential.

As a lawyer, Rose has worked in litigation and dispute resolution across multiple jurisdictions and has held multiple roles in legal education, where she created leadership and professional development programs for early career legal professionals. Her work has been recognised as innovative and trailblazing by the legal profession. The program, “Physically different: Professionally close - How to stay connected in a virtual working world” led the Law Institute of Victoria Young Lawyers to be awarded Young Lawyer Organisation of the Year by the Law Council of Australia in 2020. In 2021, she was shortlisted as a Thought Leader of the Year finalist at The Australian Women in Law Awards in 2021.

Digressions in this episode include a random connection to Sarah Davidson of 'Spoonful of Sarah' fame and Rose gets really real about her mental health journey so if you're on your own healing journey at the moment and have limited bandwidth to hear about that, then please consider this our trigger warning for you or gentle note to take care. As a result of her experiences, Rose is empathetic and compassionate disruptor.