Through our Mallesons in the Community program, we have developed a number of major initiatives that involve the participation of staff from all of our Australian offices.
Recent initiatives include working with the below organisations.
National Children’s and Youth Law Centre (NCYLC)
A national community legal centre dedicated to addressing human rights issues for children and young people.
Mallesons has worked collaboratively with the NCYLC since 2000, providing Workplace Giving donations, pro bono advice, volunteers and full time secondees. Recent projects include:
Lawstuff - updating the NCYLC's legal website. Last year, the website received two million hits, demonstrating the importance of websites like Lawstuff
LawMails - through the LawMail system, the NCYLC (with assistance from Mallesons staff) responds to online legal queries covering topics such as family relationships and law and family violence and abuse
CROC Report - assisting the NCYLC with the preparation of a report as part of the reporting process under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child
2010 Children’s Law Awards - Mallesons co-hosted the Children’s Law Awards with the NCYLC. The purpose of the Awards is to reward the often unrecognised commitment of individuals and organisations who dedicate their time and efforts to the protection of children’s rights.
Australian Business and Community Network (ABCN)
A network that focuses on broadening the opportunities available to students from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Mallesons is a foundation partner of the ABCN and our Chief Executive Partner, Robert Milliner, is a Director. Recent projects include:
Career Choice Day - held in our Sydney, Perth, Brisbane and Melbourne offices, over 1100 high school students visit Mallesons to learn about the legal industry and other career opportunities
GOALS (Growing Opportunities and Learning Skills) - a one-on-one mentoring program, developed with the aim of raising awareness of the range of personal, educational and vocational choices available to Year 9 students from low socio-economic backgrounds
SPARK - a one-on-one reading, mentoring and
support program for primary school students.
In 2010, ABCN won the Global Best Award for Business Education Partnerships for “Building a Learning Community” and was the Regional Global Winner for Business and Education Partnership for its programs at the 10th International Education Business Partnership Conference.
Humanitarian Law Perspectives
A firm-wide project that aims to assist the Red Cross through raising awareness of current issues in international humanitarian law and international criminal law.
This project is comprised each year of a national signature seminar series and a number of substantive research papers written by Mallesons staff.
Seminars - Launched in 2007, the Humanitarian Law Perspectives seminars attract large audiences, and have had many prominent guest speakers, including Magda Karagiannakis, Counsel for Bosnia and Herzegovina in the Genocide Case, Peter Morrissey, Lead Counsel for Sefer Halilovi in the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and Ken Fleming QC, former Senior Prosecutor in the International Criminals Tribunal for Rwanda.
Research papers - Each year, the seminars are based on various issues canvassed and analysed in research papers prepared by Mallesons solicitors and law clerks from the Sydney office. The 2007-2010 research papers, which predominantly focus on critical issues in the context of IHL and international criminal law, are available to download from the Australian Red Cross website.
Make Nuclear Weapons the Target campaign - Mallesons Stephen Jaques, in conjunction with Australian Red Cross, will host a public forum on the humanitarian impact of the use of nuclear weapons. Speakers include: Dr Helen Durham (Head, International Law and Principles, Australian Red Cross), Prof Ben Saul (Professor of International Law, University of Sydney) and Junko Morimoto (survivor of the Hiroshima atomic bomb). Please click
here for more information.