1. How did you get into this line of work (job and industry) and why?
My calling to the legal profession was inspired by my passion to resolve disputes for people and to get them back on their feet so they can move on with their lives and become constructive members of society. I started off as a generalist litigation lawyer before moving on to practice in just one area of law: criminal law. This is an area that I see that I can contribute the most in the administration of justice as I can use my ethnic and language background as a bridge for Accused people to navigate through the criminal justice system. People facing criminal prosecution are often unfamiliar with the criminal justice system so my background assists in bridging that cultural and language gap. To that end, regardless of the circumstances of a case, an Accused must be able to understand from a legal perspective what is happening to them for justice to be done.
2. What do you enjoy about your job?
I get satisfaction from resolving disputes for minority groups who are otherwise disadvantaged by language and cultural barriers. As a criminal defence lawyer, I am often the only person auditing police actions for my clients and telling their side of the story. Law enforcement carries great powers interfering with an individual’s rights and liberties and thus accountability is an important feature of the administration of justice. Ours is an inherently adversarial position which often puts us as loggerheads with prosecution agencies if we identify factual or legal issues in dispute. At other times where we identify no factual or legal error made by prosecution agencies, we do our best to tell our client’s life story to the Court and assist them to enrol in rehabilitative courses, for example: road trauma courses, anger management courses, behavioural change courses, and counselling, to mitigate the risk of future offending. There is a common misconception that criminal defence lawyers try to ‘minimise’ the maximum penalty applicable to an offender but that is an incorrect characterisation of drawing conclusions from the maximum sentence permissible by law. In putting our client’s case forward on a plea in mitigation, we balance the broad brush of the law with the nuances of our client’s circumstances, degree of contrition and genuine remorse, so that a just outcome can be achieved. To say that we try to ‘minimise’ or get a more lenient outcome than would otherwise be applicable is simply not the case as the fate of our clients are ultimately determined by an impartial judicial officer who takes all relevant considerations into account prior to judgment and sentencing. So there is nothing to hide that would otherwise obscure a just outcome as we are not our own client’s decision maker on a matter and neither is the prosecution. Indeed, as lawyers our paramount duty is to the Court as officers of the Court and purposefully misleading the Court is a form of professional misconduct that can see a lawyer removed from the Roll. The Courts are not just interested in punishing people for the sake of punishment but see each Accused as an individual in making an assessment on the appropriate penalty to protect society from the risk of similar incidents in the future. It is a delicate calculus in discerning the appropriate penalty in denouncing criminal conduct as well as balancing the rehabilitation of the offender.
3. What is your biggest challenge in doing this job effectively?
The biggest challenge to my job is a logistical one. Often, clients are remanded to custody with limited contact to the outside world. I get all sorts of calls from friends and relatives of people in custody who have no idea of what is happening to an Accused or where they are at present due to language barriers or international visitors who are not familiar with the locale. To complicate things further, due to prison resourcing and security reasons, it is not uncommon for an Accused to be transported to different locations such as Remand Centres or even police cells that range from Metropolitan Melbourne to even Wodonga! Often, we get no notice of prisoner movements until we periodically try to get in contact with their last location. This creates all sorts of issues for us such as organising contact through a specific remand location that each have their own administrative contact rules and contacting Corrections Victoria to find out exactly where someone is at a specific point in time. There are also blackout periods where someone is transported and initially processed and for security reasons, we cannot contact them during that time. Calls to them are also limited in duration and availability and face to face communications often must be booked days in advance so you must be on top of your own diary as well as the diaries of the barristers that you brief for your client. So if your client intends to apply for bail, each day spent chasing after their present location to get those instructions is a day wasted when they could otherwise be on bail with stringent conditions to satisfy community safety as well as to protect the legitimate livelihood of your client. Each day is precious. Therefore, from the outset, getting a hold of your client to take instructions is fundamentally important and can be challenging at times.
4. What important key trends is the legal industry facing now and in the near future?
I see technology as a key disruptor to the legal profession. Prior to the onset of the pandemic, audio visual technologies were already being deployed in an effort by the Courts to conduct hearings online where an Accused is in custody and has not applied for bail. This actually allows the Courts to deal with matters more efficiently as it minimises the risks in delays in organising secure transport for an Accused to physically attend Court from a Remand Centre, which can be a one-way hour-long journey, just to attend a quick 5 minute procedural hearing. In the sexual crimes and family violence streams, witnesses are sometimes allowed to give evidence remotely. The legislative intention is to protect fearful witnesses from their alleged perpetrators but it does in practice literally provide a screen between a witness and questions posed to challenge their accusations and failures in technology such as visual and sound glitches can distract from what are, solemn and serious proceedings of the Court. With the onset of the pandemic, online Courts where all parties appear via WebEx, have been made more prevalent to reduce the backlog of cases and progress matters efficiency through the legal system. However, it remains to be seen to what degree will the quality of justice be enhanced in this digital era as the extent to which online Courts are being deployed is unprecedented.
5. What advice would you give to a new graduate entering the legal industry?
You are entering the legal profession at an eerie time at no fault of your own and many opportunities and privileges that were afforded to your predecessors such as on-site job interviews, on-site graduate programs, and other learning opportunities have been hampered by the pandemic. Indeed, even Legal Admissions are conducted ‘on the papers’ at present. However, this is a temporary situation so now is the best time to build yourselves a robust resilience that will serve your careers well into the future. Your clients will depend on it.