The awards, expanded this year to include a category for commercial law firms, were presented by Attorney General John Quigley to recognise and celebrate the pro bono work being done in Western Australia.
Independent children’s lawyer Julia Johnston won the Individual Award for her decades of work protecting children in need as a legal counsel and an adviser to non-profit legal services and refuges, including a lifelong association with family services provider Wanslea.
“Julia Johnston has devoted much of a 40-year career to protecting children at risk,” Mr Quigley said. “The time she has spent helping not-for-profit groups is just as laudable.”
The Not-For-Profit Award was shared between the Citizens Advice Bureau of WA – which provides low-cost advice and mediation services to those most in need – and the Consumer Credit Legal Service, the State’s only community legal centre focused on consumer and financial rights.
The new Legal Firm Award also had two winners: Corrs Chambers Westgarth and migration specialists Estrin Saul Lawyers. Both were cited for the considerable pro bono services they have provided.
“This complements the awards for individuals and not-for-profit organisations and takes into account the new pro bono requirements that now apply to all law firms undertaking legal services for government departments and agencies,” Department of Justice Director General Dr Adam Tomison said.
Mr Quigley presented the awards in a ceremony at the David Malcolm Justice Centre in Perth.
The awards are in their 14th year. Usually announced during Law Week in May, they were postponed this year because of COVID-19 restrictions.
“These awards highlight the importance of pro bono and community legal services in making the justice system more fair and equitable,” Mr Quigley said.
“The work being done by these firms and lawyers makes a huge difference in ensuring that vulnerable people can access the legal advice and representation that they need.”
Dr Tomison said: “It is their expertise and understanding of our legal system which makes their contribution so valuable, and so valued by their pro bono clients.
“Without their efforts our legal system would be so much the poorer,” he said.
Individual Award Winner
Julia Johnston, Independent Children’s Lawyer
When she was a boarder at a girls’ school, Julia Johnston signed up to volunteer at the Wanslea children’s hostel in Cottesloe. This was the beginning of a lifetime safeguarding the welfare of children. Ms Johnston’s 40-year legal career has been focused on protecting children in need, often in the face of professional or physical threats by litigants. In the past 20 years alone she has taken on more than 1600 grants of legal aid for impoverished and vulnerable people and provided pro bono assistance to non-profit legal services and refuges. True to her roots, Ms Johnston has since the early 1990s advised Wanslea - now a family services provider - and served as president, vice president, board member and now patron. “To try and properly estimate how many people whose lives she has positively improved over the last 40 years without seeking to do so for financial gain would be an impossible task,” family lawyer Richard Bannerman says.
Legal Firm Awards Winners
Corrs Chambers Westgarth
The long list of national law firm Corrs Chambers Westgarth’s pro bono clients is a who’s who of charitable and non-profit groups. Lesser known are the many disadvantaged individuals served through the firm’s engagements with Community Legal Centres. Corrs’ Perth office clocked up more than 5000 hours of lawyers’ time providing pro bono services over a 12-month period. It has also since 2008 seconded graduate lawyers to CLCs for one day a week, valuable experiences that many of the firm’s most senior lawyers have had. Lawyers helped in a case on a pro bono basis say a team of Corrs staff contributed thousands of hours of professional time preparing for a hearing and produced an outstanding body of work.
Estrin Saul Lawyers
When the Chinese mother of a baby with Down syndrome and leukaemia was facing deportation last year, Estrin Saul Lawyers came to her rescue. Instead of having to give the child up for foster care, the woman was granted a visa to stay in Australia. She is one of the many people the migration specialist firm has helped on a pro bono basis. Estrin Saul last year devoted 10 per cent of its caseload to pro bono or reduced-fee clients. This is in response to what the firm calls an unprecedented need for immigration assistance for asylum seekers and refugees in Western Australia. Dominique Hansen, chief executive of Law Access, says Estrin Saul’s “advocacy and public interest litigation highlights and regularly successfully challenges systemic injustices”.
Not-for-Profit Award Winners
Citizens Advice Bureau of WA
A widow locked out by her stepson after a hospital stay was able to return to her home of 30 years thanks to the intervention of the Citizen’s Advice Bureau. The not-for-profit organisation has a long and impressive case history of helping not only vulnerable people but those it calls the “missing middle”. Assisted by more than 220 volunteers, including pro bono lawyers and mediators, across 10 branches, CAB provides low-cost legal advice and mediation service, and partners with other organisations to help those most in need. Criminal injuries compensation claims and victims of crime often figure in CAB’s caseload. “Our ethos is to never turn anyone away, whether it’s a client needing assistance, a person seen as ‘unemployable’ who wants professional experience or an agency that we can support,” chief executive Kathryn Lawrence says.
Consumer Credit Legal Service
The banking royal commission saw demand soar for the services of WA’s only community legal centre focused on consumer and financial rights. Despite only having a handful of staff, the Consumer Credit Legal Service draws on law students and volunteer graduates to provide legal advice, information and referrals via a free telephone advice line. The service offers free legal representation for complex cases or where a vulnerable consumer has crippling debts to an unscrupulous lender. “We are incredibly passionate about our mission to strengthen the consumer voice in WA by advocating for, and educating people about, consumer and financial, rights and responsibilities,” managing solicitor Gemma Mitchell says. “Our vision is for a strong community empowered by fair and just, consumer and financial, rights and responsibilities.”
