Despite a number of lawyers being nominated
for Australia Day Awards, the legal profession left empty handed in the major
categories.
Oscar winning actor Geoffrey Rush was named
Australian of the Year in Canberra
on Wednesday evening (25 January), being selected from a field of candidates
that included barristers Robyn Layton QC and Stephen Estcourt QC.
Layton, the current co-chair of Reconciliation SA and a former Supreme
Court judge, was nominated as South
Australia's finalist for her commitment to the rights
of the disadvantaged.
Estcourt was a Tasmanian finalist for the
major Australia Day Award. With extensive experience practising in the civil
and criminal jurisdictions of the Tasmanian Supreme Court, Federal Court and
High Court, Estcourt has also served as president of the Tasmanian Bar
Association and helped organise World Party Tasmania, an event which celebrates
Tasmania's
multicultural community.
Retired Children's Court magistrate Barbara
Holborrow was a finalist for the Senior Australian of the Year Award, which
went to Aboriginal elder Laurie Baymarrwangga.
Holborrow was instrumental in setting up
free legal aid for children in New
South Wales.
A number of young lawyers and law students
were finalists in the Young Australian of the Year category, but all were
overlooked in favour of 22-year-old engineering advocate Marita Cheng.
Commercial litigation lawyer Lia
Finocchiaro was a finalist from the Northern
Territory, with Victorian social justice campaigner
Tim Goodwin also a state finalist.
Australia's
Local Hero Award went to foster mother and carer Lynne Sawyers. The 68-year-old
from the Cowra region of NSW has shared her home with more than 200 children
over the past 15 years.
Legal finalists in this category included
migration lawyer Marianne Dickie from the ACT. Dickie is the sub-dean of the
Australian National University Migration Law program, with her nomination
recognising her pro bono work, submissions to Senate inquiries and role in
guiding the development of 33 practitioner teachers.
Last year, two men with links to Blake
Dawson picked up the Australian of the Year Award and Senior Australian of the
Year.
Simon McKeon, the chairman of the CSIRO and
the executive chairman of the Macquarie Group's Melbourne office, was named the 2011
Australian of the Year. McKeon had previously worked as a lawyer with what was
then Blake Dawson Walrdon in the 1980s.
Last year's Senior Australian of the Year, Professor
Ron McCallum, has worked as a consultant and special counsel with Blake Dawson.
McCallum, the first totally blind person to have been appointed a full
professorship at an Australian university, is recognised as one of Australia's
foremost experts on industrial and labour law.
