Lawyers and law graduates feature prominently among the candidates running for the major parties, making up one in five of the candidates for both the Labor and Liberal parties. The Lawyers Weekly Show hosted a few such lawyers turned candidates, including King & Wood Mallesons lawyer Leon Rebello (running for the LNP in McPherson), Maurice Blackburn lawyer Emily Mawson (running for Labor in Capricornia), and former lawyer Hannah Thomas (running for the Greens in the Prime Minister’s seat of Grayndler).

Another lawyer, Lucy Bradlow, ran a now-suspended campaign alongside Bronwen Bock as job-sharing candidates for a Senate seat in Victoria, arguing job-sharing MPs marked a critical step towards having a “truly representative” democracy.

Of the 150 electorates being contested for the House of Representatives, the Australian Electoral Commission lists one-third (51) of those seats as being marginal – that is, held by the sitting member with a margin of 6 per cent or less.

In the 10 closest marginal seats, nationwide, lawyers feature prominently, running as a candidate for either one of the two major parties, or as sitting independent (teal) candidates.

In fact, when listing the most likely candidates to be victorious in all 20 of these electorates, lawyers account for almost one in two (nine out of 20) prospective MPs.

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Here are the lawyers and law grads running as one of the top two candidates in the 10 most-marginal electorates:

• Deakin (Victoria): Sitting MP Michael Sukkar (shadow minister for social services, shadow minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme, shadow minister for housing, shadow minister for homelessness, manager of opposition business) formerly worked at a BigLaw firm and is facing off against lawyer and school teacher Matt Gregg, standing for Labor.
• Menzies (Victoria): Barrister and veteran Keith Wolahan (who appeared on The Lawyers Weekly Show prior to the 2022 election) is the sitting MP and is going up against lawyer and CLC volunteer Gabriel Ng, who is standing for Labor.
• Sturt (SA): elected councillor and lawyer Claire Clutterham is running to unseat the shadow assistant minister for government waste reduction, James Stevens.
• Wentworth (NSW): Liberal candidate Ro Knox has a LLB and studied international law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and is running to unseat sitting independent MP Allegra Spender;
• Moore (WA): Lawyer and electrician Tom Moore is standing for Labor, attempting to unseat sitting MP Ian Goodenough – running in this election as an independent – and is competing against Liberal candidate Vince Connelly.
• Canning (WA): State prosecutor Jarrad Goold is taking on sitting MP Andrew Hastie, the shadow minister for defence, shadow minister for defence industry, and shadow minister for defence personnel.
• Curtin (WA): Sitting independent MP Kate Chaney formerly practised both in commercial law and at a prominent Sydney-based CLC and is facing up against Liberal candidate Tom White.

Recently, ANU Law Professor Donald Rothwell appeared on The Lawyers Weekly Show to provide a refresher on the laws and processes governing Australia’s federal elections. The Australian Lawyers Alliance also released a Call to Parties, highlighting 10 areas of policy and law reform being sought by practitioners across the country.