Australian Young Lawyer Awards
The Australian Young Lawyer Awards is conducted annually by the Law Council of Australia's Young Lawyers' Committee and recognises excellence in young or early career lawyers and young lawyer organisations.
To be eligible for the award, a nominee must either be a young or early career lawyer who has made a continuous and outstanding contribution to the profession and the community, or alternatively, a young lawyer organisation that has implemented a program relating to professional or community issues over the preceding financial calendar year.
Nominations for the 2023 Australian Young Lawyer Awards will open in mid-2023.
2022 Winners
Australian Young Lawyer of the Year
The 2022 Australian Young Lawyer is Tegun Middleton.
Since her admission to practice in 2015, Tegun has consistently participated in charitable and pro bono work and has demonstrated remarkable skills in leadership, innovation and perseverance. Tegun has particularly demonstrated these qualities through co-founding and expanding The Legal Forecast, an organisation for law students and early-career legal professionals which seeks to promote disruptive thinking, access to justice, inclusion, and mental wellbeing in the profession.
Ventures such as The Legal Forecast not only require considerable vision, but also courage and commitment to put these ideas into practice and expand to other jurisdictions beyond Brisbane, as Tegun has done.
Beyond The Legal Forecast, Tegun is currently working with and observing on the Board of the Lovewell Foundation which provides assistance to women who are in, or recovering from, vulnerable situations. She also undertakes significant pro bono work for environment-related not-for-profits, including the Climate Foundation and Queensland Trust for Nature.
The Law Council had the opportunity to interview Ms Middleton. Read the interview here.
Australian Young Lawyer Organisation Award
The 2022 Australian Young Lawyer Organisation award was presented to the Young Lawyers Committee of the Law Society of Western Australia.
The Committee has engaged in an outstanding advocacy program which has culminated in the development, publication and distribution of two resources which are relevant to the profession Australia-wide.
The Committee published the Know Your Rights Guide in August 2021, which outlines the entitlements under industrial relations laws for law graduates and junior legal practitioners. In September 2022, the Committee published its Fair, Safe and Inclusive Legal Workplaces resource, which provides profession-wide guidelines on student, graduate and young lawyer working conditions.
The Law Council anticipates that these useful resources will lay the foundations for bigger conversations with respect to working conditions for young lawyers in Australia.
The Law Council had the opportunity to interview the Committee. Read the interview here.
Video
Contact
For more information about the Awards please contact:
Ms Natalie Cooper
T. 02 6246 3724
E. natalie.cooper@lawcouncil.au
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