Katrina Dawson Award September 2023

11/10/2023

Diversity

The Bar Association is delighted to announce that Lucy Geddes is the recipient of the Katrina Dawson Award for September 2023.

Lucy is originally from Griffith, NSW where she attended local public primary and high schools. She was admitted as a solicitor in 2014, having graduated from the University of New South Wales with degrees in Arts and Law, as well as completing a Masters in Women, Peace and Security at the London School of Economics and Science on an awarded Lionel Murphy scholarship. She was awarded best overall performance in her masters where she placed first in three subjects: International Criminal Law: Prosecution & Practice; Advanced Issues in Women, Peace and Security; and Gender & Militarisation.

Lucy has extensive experience as a public and criminal lawyer, with particular expertise in human rights law with over 10 years’ experience working across multiple jurisdictions including NSW, Victoria, South Africa, England, the Netherlands and Sri Lanka. Most recently, Lucy led Public Interest Advocacy’s (PIAC) Asylum Seeker Rights Project. Lucy has passionately advocated for clients from disadvantaged backgrounds with particular achievements for clients with disability in her time working with Victorian Legal Aid. Lucy clerked for Chief Justice Mogoeng of the Constitutional Court of South Africa and also served as law clerk to Vice-President Cuno Tarfusser of the International Criminal Court.

Lucy’s achievements are not limited to the court room, in 2022, Lucy served as an advisor for Diplomacy Training Programme/DFAT course ‘Human Rights Leadership to Influence Policy’, which was undertaken by 30 Indonesian human rights defenders. She has been a teaching fellow at UNSW since 2021 and most recently, she has been asked to teach Public Interest Litigation at UNSW in 2024. She has also been published widely and this year, her first book, co-authored with Hamish McLachlan, was published by Federation Press. Entitled ‘50 Human Rights Cases that Changed Australia’, the book summarises Australia’s most important human rights cases and provides commentary on their impact. The Foreword of the book was written by the Hon Michael Kirby AC CMG. She has also worked closely with Emeritus Professor Andrea Durbach in her postgraduate career including conducting research on the role of women’s hearings in the design and implementation of reparations for victims of sexual violence post-conflict.

Lucy is deeply committed to participating in life at the Bar, and in particular, contributing to the transformation of the profession to make it more diverse, inclusive and accessible.

Lucy passed the Bar Exam in June 2023 and sat the September 2023 Bar Practice Course.