Helen Symon SC

Women know that they are seen in a different light, or their skills are seen in a different light, or they’re not recognised to the same degree that some of the men are and it is a real frustration because you’ve got this little voice in your head saying, “Well I’m okay, I’m doing a good job –“.

Judge Liz Gaynor

- “How come the barrister down the road is getting –“

Helen Symon SC

That’s right, when a bloke comes into court opposed, and you think, “Eh, that’s your best shot? How come he’s getting it?” And the next thought is, “That’s okay, Helen, you’ve just got to settle for the fact that you’re a second rater”. And then there is this downward spiral – “maybe you’re just a second rater and you’ve just got to be willing to be on the second rung of the ladder and not the top of the profession, blah, blah, blah” – and you just try and convince yourself – and you go, “No, I’m not, no, I’m not, I’m really good….” So you just have this constant –

Judge Liz Gaynor

Schizophrenic jumping backwards and forwards –

Helen Symon SC

Ridiculous conversation with yourself –

Judge Liz Gaynor

Backwards and forwards all the time. I know, and as women too, you’re socialised to be more questioning of yourself. And you go, “You know, maybe I’m doing this wrong. Maybe I’ve misunderstood this and you know – rah, rah, rah, rah”. So there is an enormous amount of subliminal discrimination.

Samantha Marks

I’ve often felt that it is an advantage to be the only woman in the courtroom - you get noticed if you are half way good. And you’re remembered, because you stand out amongst a sea of grey suits. But on the other hand, I made that comment to a solicitor who has briefed me for 18 years recently and he said, “Oh yes, Sam,” he said, “but you don’t know the ones I’m not able to send you because the client will say ‘Oh, we want a bloke’”. He said “I can often talk them out of it, but I can’t always”. And I thought, well look, that’s true. None of us know what we might not be getting because of that underlying old-fashioned view, the 1950s views that might be there. And I think that that may be an answer also for the fact that whilst in some areas women might get more work and at some levels and if you perhaps fall within people’s preconceptions of what firm you should have come from or even what school you went to or whether you look like what they think a female version of a barrister might look like and wear the right suit, but maybe those who don’t fall within all of those particular categories miss out and they’re the ones that shouldn’t be missing out if they are halfway good as advocates, just like the halfway good blokes don’t miss out. So it’s not just about the really good ones, it’s about everybody getting a fair go, as Fran (O’Brien) was saying.

Juliette Brodsky

Simone?

Simone Jacobson, WBA convenor 2006-07

In my naiveté, I didn’t believe that that was going on, until yesterday I got a phone call from a solicitor and he rang me and he said, “I don’t know you, but I’ve read in the media about the Australian Women Lawyers Survey in the AFR and the Australian and I know that women are missing out on serious trial work and I’m very upset about it. I have a client who doesn’t want to brief a woman who I have put forward a senior woman who I think is the best person for the job and I’m not happy about it, I’ve got two daughters studying law and I don’t want them to inherit this situation, this state of play so I want to know: where do I find those statistics?” I told him where on the WBA, the Vic Bar website, click WBA, click publications and the AWL survey is there and then he said, “Great, that’s fine - I’m going to send my client a letter pointing out the statistics in that AWL survey and tell him that I stand by my decision to brief a woman, if he wants to brief a male only for that reason, that is his decision” - but he (the solicitor) doesn’t stand by it. He emails me later in the day to say, “Just to let you know that I’ve sent that letter to the client and unfortunately people in this world are being briefed not for who they are, but for the wrong reasons”, words to that effect.

Juliette Brodsky

These wrong reasons, do they boil down to “I want an aggressive barrister”?

Caroline Kirton

The big boomy voice!

Juliette Brodsky

The boomy voice.

Caroline Kirton

When Frances (Millane) was convenor, I remember being particularly apoplexed – I had been around for a good few years by that stage and I’d been involved in a domestic building dispute which was for a reasonably small amount but for an instructing solicitor who was in his fifties who was acting for one of his mates, a solicitor also in his fifties, and I’d done all the pleadings and we got all the way up to the mediation and I suddenly thought, “Oh, the brief hasn’t arrived for the mediation”. I rang him up and said, “Oh, where’s the brief for the mediation?” and he said: “Oh look, I have to tell you – “ and he was so sheepish about it - he said: “We’ve decided to go – well, he wants a big boomy voice”. And I just couldn’t believe that for what was essentially a $20,000 claim at that point in time, that these two blokes in their fifties, both solicitors, would decide that it was a big boomy voice. And to add insult to injury, I was opposed to counsel who had been at the Bar for two years and another member of counsel who was delightful but who had come and confided to me that she had never run a case before, and they felt that they had to get a big boomy voice to do this mediation. The mediation didn’t settle and when he rang me up – oh, he told me I had the intellect to do the hearing but not the mediation, because they wanted the big boomy voice. So I was naturally very polite about all of this.

France O’Brien SC

Don’t you think, Caroline, that this is the core of the problem, they can’t say that we’re not smart enough so they say we’re not tough enough.

Judge Felicity Hampel

I had a solicitor say he’d brief me in a maternity leave claim for a woman and he rang me up and said: “I’m really embarrassed but she wants a man, she doesn’t think you’ll be aggressive enough,” and I actually heard myself saying: “I can be aggressive”. [Laughter] I was so cross but I think part of the point was, it is not just the solicitors, it’s the perception of the clients and it’s not just men.

Fiona McLeod SC

Maybe there is a perception of culture. Not just at the Bar but in the general population that women respond in anger in a certain way, that we’re covert, that we’re shrill, that we have certain modes of behaving that they don’t think will translate to a courtroom and they prefer a machismo or a male style of outward aggression.

Frances O’Brien SC

I’m not prepared to say that about the general population. I think the general population recognises that women are just as good as men. They don’t decide who gets the brief, it’s the solicitors with all their prejudices. The general population, by and large, want someone who is good at their job and tough at their job. It’s not clients. It’s solicitors.

Judge Felicity Hampel

I disagree, I think it’s often clients.

Edited transcript of interviews conducted by Juliette Brodsky on March 30 and April 10 2007 in the Neil McPhee Room, Owen Dixon Chambers East, and filmed by Sarah McLeod, Stewart Carter, Branden Barber and Bonnie Elliott.