Judge Rachelle Lewitan:

I believe that one of the difficulties for women at the Bar is associated with maternal and family responsibilities, and the fact that they often have to stop their practices for a while and then they come back to the Bar. And they are inhibited to a certain extent from practising the way that they normally did, or working the hours they used to, because of the change in their responsibilities.

Judge Fran Hogan:

Women, not withstanding all the rhetoric about equality and how people can achieve equal roles in a domestic situation, still are the childbearers, and still by virtue of natural instinct want to be with their children, while still having the yearning to follow their careers.

Susan Crennan:

It is a pretty demanding profession in terms of family life, so you need to have fairly good arrangements in place to be able to enjoy both.

Jennifer Batrouney:

The minute that it’s thought you have children, there is an assumption that you’re therefore not correspondingly committed to your work. Now, I am committed to my children, but when I’m at work, I’m at work. And I have never been part time at work; I have always been full time.

Judge Fran Hogan:

There are all those sort of practical constraints about childcare, and when a child is sick, the obvious everyday needs – both emotional and physical – of your children. What I say to women coming to the Bar is that you need to think very carefully about what sort of safety nets you have in place. And it is difficult because ultimately I decided that makeshift childcare was just not going to work out, and so it meant involving the expense of effectively having to employ someone full-time, and that’s been the only way that I’ve been able to manage.

(Scene at Supreme Court - Chief Justice Marilyn Warren: Yes, madam prosecutor….)

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