Justice Ideas Forum 2026

On Wednesday 29 July, 120 legal professionals, policymakers, researchers and community advocates filled the Barnet Long Room at Customs House, Sydney/Warrane for the second annual Justice Ideas Forum, and to hear from the 2025 Justice Fellows as they shared their research on critical access to justice challenges.

Over tea and coffee, the room hummed with the kind of conversation that happens when a sector turns up in force: colleagues catching up, new connections forming, people comparing notes before the program had even begun. By 10am, the room was full and the work started.

The morning opened with a Welcome to Country delivered by Chair of the Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council, Uncle Allen Murray, and Law and Justice Foundation of NSW Chair Sharon Cook contextualised the thinking behind the establishment of the Fellowships and explained its significance to both the Foundation and the sector.

The presentations

Five Fellows presented work spanning some of the most consequential access to justice questions facing NSW right now:

Regina Featherstone, Senior Lawyer in the Human Rights Law Centre’s Whistleblower Project, presented on her investigation of out-of-court settlement practices in anti-discrimination claims, drawing on data from community legal centres to shed light on how discrimination law operates beyond the courtroom.

Read Regina’s report

Professor Teela Reid, Wiradjuri and Wailwan woman, solicitor and Associate Dean (Indigenous) at the University of Sydney Law School, explored the significance of First Nations Matriarchal advocacy and its enduring role in shaping justice in NSW. In her presentation, Teela took us through her report, giving new insights into the lives and work of well-known First Nations matriarchs such as Barangaroo, as well as less widely known leaders such as Essie Coffey.

Vijhai Grayan, Senior Legal Counsel and former community legal centre sector professional, unpacked the complexities of AI adoption in community legal centres and what it would take to close the gap between well-resourced and under-resourced services.

Read Vijhai’s report

Claudia Robinson, solicitor and human rights advocate, presented examples and evidence supporting her case for how Australian laws and financial systems can better recognise and respond to economic abuse, drawing on a comparison with the United Kingdom.

Read Claudia’s report.

Alastair Lawrie, Director of Policy and Advocacy at the Justice and Equity Centre, laid out a case for a best practice legislative framework in NSW to protect children born with variations of sex characteristics from non-consenting medical interventions.

Read Alastair’s report

Announcing the 2026 Justice Fellows

As part of the event, Foundation director Olivia Nguy announced the 2026 Justice Fellows:

Keiran O’Sullivan, community legal education solicitor at Legal Aid NSW, examines the effectiveness of social media, particularly short-form video, as a mechanism for delivering community legal education, and what the evidence means for how the legal assistance sector allocates its resources.

Ammy Singh, Senior Policy Officer at the NSW Law Reform Commission, explores discrimination law through the lens of systemic reform, drawing on her experience across human rights, workplace rights and community legal practice in NSW and the Northern Territory.

Josh Pallas and Julia Grix, Legal Director and Executive Director respectively of Climate Defenders Australia, map trends in the criminalisation and policing of protest in NSW, examining the access to justice gaps facing people seeking to exercise their democratic rights.

Shantell Bailey, Principal Solicitor of Civil Law at the Aboriginal Legal Service (NSW/ACT), examines what culturally safe, healing-centred alternatives to custody could look like for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women in NSW, learning from other international jurisdictions.

We look forward to sharing their work with you in the year ahead.