Tipstaff:

Silence. All stand please, and remain standing….. All persons having business before this court are commanded to give their attendance and they shall be heard. God save the Queen.

Chief Justice Marilyn Warren:

Call the matter, Madam Associate.

Narrator (Susanna Lobez):

Ten years ago, a group of women barristers decided to form an association to serve their interests. Some were opposed to the move, believing it would divide the bar. Others welcomed it, as a means to address inequalities and encourage women to stay at the bar and flourish.

Woman barrister:

Your Honour, I appear for the plaintiff, Mr Barns in this matter.

Narrator:

This year (2003), the Women Barristers Association is ten years old. We mark this year as the coming of age, and in this film we pause to look back and ask some of our pioneers who they are, and how they experienced life at the Bar.

Chief Justice Marilyn Warren:

Whenever I went into the court as a barrister, I went in as a barrister, not as a woman. And whenever I’ve gone into a court, I go in as judge, and gender is left at the door. Surprisingly enough, it does not enter my head.

Allayne Kiddle:

I didn’t think of myself as a woman at the Bar – this is something that’s come in with modern women. I just thought of myself as a barrister at the Bar, and I’m sure Joan Rosanove never thought of herself as a woman at the Bar.

Narrator:

Joan Rosanove was the first woman to sign the Victorian Bar roll on 10th September 1923.

Channel 9 archival footage (1965):

Mrs Joan Rosanove is one of Victoria’s four women barristers. Her climb to the top of a proud and conservative profession has been long and at times, hard. Even now, she feels the final reward of a barrister’s career will elude her.

Joan Rosanove:

I’ve had to accept the fact that being a female in this day and age, I’ll never be made a judge.

Narrator:

Joan was the first woman to be appointed Queen’s Counsel. She took silk in 1965 after accumulating 19 years in practice in Victoria. By the time she took silk, only eight women in total had been called to the Bar.

Justice Susan Crennan:

When I first went to the Bar in NSW, you could have counted women barristers on one hand, I think. And I think it was pretty much the same when I came to the Bar in Victoria.

Lynnette Schiftan QC:

I was a bit like a striped and spotted dog. There was nobody else around my age who actually wore a skirt, (who was) available. So there was no one to share with, other than other men.

Helen Symon SC:

Barristers always attract attention when they’re walking along the street. But often people would do a double-take when they saw me. I’d see them nudging each other and saying ‘Look! That one’s a woman!’ So that sense - that I was taking a challenge on, and challenging people’s notions about what women could do, and who a barrister was - has been an exciting thing for me.

Joan Rosanove (archival footage):

I’ve had to accept the fact that it’s always been pretty tough-going – you don’t get a terrible lot of breaks. But it is by far the most the competitive profession, I should think, of any of the professions.

Jennifer Batrouney SC:

I came to the Bar from a solicitors’ firm, thinking there is no prejudice. If you put your beak down and your tail up and work hard, you’ll be treated just like every other barrister. And I was one of the school of thought that was ‘I wasn’t a woman barrister, just a barrister who happened to be a woman’. It wasn’t long before I realised that wasn’t quite right – that the fellows I went through were getting much better quality work than I was getting, at a much more junior level. They would be running the trials, while I was doing the directions hearings.

Judge Susan Cohen:

And I found it very hard to push into the sort of work that I wanted the challenge of doing. Rather doing rather mundane work, or work that no-one else wanted which sometimes was very satisfying, but often for little pay.

Allayne Kiddle:

It was assumed that women couldn’t do anything of course, here, but if we could do anything, we must be able to do divorce.

Lynnette Schiftan:

It was an absolute expectation, that’s all women were good for. The concept of doing anything commercial was non-existent.

Written and Produced by Fiona McLeod SC
Edited and Directed by Sarah McLeod
A Twin Lizards Production
© 2003