Review of Breaking Down Boundaries 2008 by Sue-Lin Wong

Published in Peppercorn, a publication of the ANU Law Students’ Society.

I came away from finishing my first year of law last year with a very different outlook than the one I had started out with. In Lawyers’ Justice and Ethics, we studied about the unusually high rates of depression and suicide amongst lawyers compared with other professions and how this could be partially attributed to the emphasis on ‘clocking up the hours’ in large, corporate law firms.

And so it was somewhat of a relief going to the inaugural ‘Breaking Down Boundaries: Law for Social Justice’ conference held at Sydney University at the beginning of the summer holidays.

Three of us from the LSS’ Social Justice portfolio – Sam Stapleton, Sophie Roden and I – along with other interested students from both ANU and universities across Australia participated in the weekend residential program where we were inspired to use our study of law for social justice and positive change within our communities.

The weekend consisted of a series of workshops and forums including a criminal law forum, international law forum, indigenous forum and perceptions of the legal profession forum. We heard from expert panels consisting of leaders in not only the field of law, but also academia, medicine, foreign policy, media and youth. There was an Indigenous Australia workshop which explored what it means to be a part of a Stolen Generation through interactive activities and reflection. I was sceptical about the Personal Development and Leadership workshop because I immediately flashbacked to school camp bonding activities. However, I was pleasantly surprised when we all participated in what I would describe as the most interesting and useful teamwork exercise I have ever been a part of. The emphasis of the exercise was on how much more can be achieved through cooperation and collaboration rather than the dog-eat-dog approach.

We were lucky enough for both Julian Burnside QC and the Hon Greg James QC to be the keynote speakers of the conference. Mr Burnside was very generous with his time and spent the whole of Saturday night at the conference chatting to us, imparting gems of wisdom both about law and also non-law issues. He spoke of how he could not have done all that he did for refugees if he had not worked in “the big end of town.” He told us to not just dismiss working for a corporate law firm because it’s seen as “selling our soul” but instead to learn all you can from an experience like that. Likewise, Mr James really engaged with us by spending time answering our questions and finding out what we wanted to do with the law. He reminded us about how fun law is and the key is to find our passion within it. For example, being a sports fanatic, he managed to combine law and sport by heading the Rugby League Tribunal.

The conference was a great opportunity to meet like-minded law students from across Australia. There were numerous social functions including a trivia night, film screenings, garden party and the wrap party. We came away from the conference not only with a couple more friends on Facebook but also ideas for the LSS’ social justice portfolio here at ANU.

We are hoping to kick off the year with a screening of “Invisible Children” which is a documentary about child soldiers in Uganda. We were so moved by their story at the conference. This viewing should happen in the first couple of weeks of Semester 1 so keep an eye out for that. While at BDB, we attended an alternative careers fair with

representatives from a range of organizations such as the Prisoners Union, Legal Publishing companies and Australian Youth Ambassadors for Development which is an initiative run by the Australian Government and AusAid. We are collating all the information we gained into a ‘Law for Social Justice’ internship guide which will be available in electronic form on the LSS website by Term 2.

We came away from the conference motivated by what we heard, discussed and experienced with a stronger belief that we will be part of a generation of progressive law students and lawyers. I would highly encourage anyone interested to attend the conference next year. Whether you are set on becoming a high-flying lawyer or announced to everyone in your first day of Foundies that you will never, ever become a lawyer, you will undoubtedly learn some new things from a conference like Breaking Down Boundaries.