We are excited to announce that Women’s Legal Service Tasmania CEO and Principal Solicitor Ms Susan Fahey has been awarded the Tasmanian Women Lawyers Biennial Achievement Award 2014 for outstanding contribution and achievement to the practice, development and education of law and social justice.
Past recipients of the Award include Tamara Jago SC and Professor Kate Warner.
The Women’s Legal Service’s focus is to educate and empower women as well as to provide them with legal advice, assistance and advocacy.
Susan has worked to raise the profile of the Women’s Legal Service and secured funding to ensure the Service exists and remains free for all Tasmanian women to access. In the last three years Women’s Legal Service has had a 56% increase in the number of clients that received assistance.
Susan has significantly contributed to policy and legislative reform to remove legal barriers facing women in Tasmania. These include the deemed parenting amendments, legalising altruistic surrogacy, and most recently, the decriminalisation of abortion in Tasmania.
In 2011 Susan was instrumental in transforming the University of Tasmania’s Student Legal Service from a referral service to a service where students are able, with supervision, to provide legal advice to their clients.
Susan’s ability to harness new technology to increase access to justice for women across Australia is further evidence of her willingness to go above and beyond in educating women of their legal rights. Girls Gotta Know, developed by the Women’s Legal Service, is recognised as the biggest, most comprehensive legal website for women in Australia.
As an employer and mentor, Susan encourages the notion that lawyers do not just have to work within the confines of the law, but instead have the power to change the law for the better of all.
Susan said that she was “truly humbled to accept the award” and paid tribute to “the amazing and hard working team at Women’s Legal Service without whom much of the successes described would not have been possible”.