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The wider community might be able to shed some light on what role lawyers can play in initiating social change, according to PILCH executive director Fiona McLeay. Tonight (19 October), at…
The wider community might be able to shed some light on what role lawyers can play in initiating social change, according to PILCH executive director Fiona McLeay.
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Tonight (19 October), at PILCH's first Annual Law and Social Change Dialogue, the question of whether or not lawyers can change the world will be directed at GetUp! national director Simon Sheikh, as well as nrg chief executive Nic Frances, at a forum at the State Library of Victoria.
According to the debate's moderator, Julian Morrow from the Chaser, the debate will not centre around lawyers lecturing non-lawyers on the good they do, but rather "about lawyers hearing from non-lawyers and being part of a discussion".
According to McLeay, plenty of lawyers earn a bad name as ambulance-chasers, or for not considering the impact of the law on people doing it tough.
"But there are many lawyers, in the tradition of Ghandi and Mandela, who spend their lives calling for justice in the courts and on the streets," she said. "Some do so by working within the system while others abandon the law altogether.
"This dialogue is an opportunity to take this important debate outside the realm of the legal profession to hear what the broader community has to say," she said.
