S8 Episode 2: Grit — 30th Anniversary of VWL: Three Decades of Change

Now, Deanne, throwing back to when you were first, well, VWL's first president, what was it like running Victorian Women Lawyers in the first year? And what were the key focus areas for you and the committee at the time? And do you think that they have been addressed in the past 30 years?

Well, you know, it's in one way, and it's slightly horrifying to know that the organisation still has a need to continue in 30 years later, because

back in the 90s, we

were very optimistic.

And in fact, we first kind of started as a committee within the young boys section of the Law Institute.

And we were looking specifically at these issues around female practitioners and The fact that women had been graduating in the same numbers as men from law school for well over a decade, but there was absolutely no tracking.

If you then looked at the career progression of those cohorts, they were in no way achieving the same level of progress as men within the profession.

So that original focus was very much around workplace issues, flexibility and so on.

But back in 93, 94, we were like, we don't, we're not going to make it a standalone association because, you know, that will only make it our problem as opposed to the actual professions problem.

And, you know, these guys, these 90s men, they get it.

They want to be equal partners with us.

They will actually work with us because they'll want the same thing.

They'll want flexibility and everything else.

I went to London for a year to do my master's and came back in sort of 95. and said, so guys, how's that all going? And nothing had changed.

So that's why we ended up creating the association then in sort of 96, 97.

And it was still all

around these issues of flexibility of workplace practices and so on.

And we were very hopeful that perhaps after about 10 years, we'd be able to wrap it all up because all those issues would be solved.

are sadly not quite there yet.

Not quite there.

I think on the one hand, it's, I guess, reassuring in the sense that VWL has continued to exist in that time and we continue to create opportunities for women or female identifying lawyers to connect in the industry that, you know, they may not feel.

Oh,

absolutely.

And you're doing great work and it's fantastic.

But it was just, you know, that optimistic kind of 90s, we can have it all.