Elspeth joined chambers in 2006 and has made such a valuable contribution to life at FBC.
Elspeth’s service to the profession extends well beyond her own practice. She is a former President of Australian Women Lawyers and a former President of Women Lawyers of WA, a former Chair of the WA Legal Assistance Forum, and served on the WA Bar Council from 2009 to 2021. She has long given her time to pro bono coordination for the WA Bar, sat on the steering committee for the 20th Anniversary Review of the Chief Justice’s 1994 Gender Bias Taskforce Report, and has contributed to the education of the profession through papers and her authorship of sections of the Lawyer’s Practice Manual WA.
Elspeth is the current Chair of the Law Access Board and has consistently championed the needs of vulnerable members of the community, often on a pro bono basis, during her career at the bar. Elspeth is a much-valued member of Francis Burt Chambers and we are delighted that she has been honoured in this way.
This recognition is not the first time her contribution has been formally acknowledged. In 2014 she received the Attorney General’s Community Service Law Award and, jointly, the WA Bar Association Distinguished Service Award, and in 2015 she was named Women Lawyers of WA’s Woman Lawyer of the Year. The OAM is a fitting national recognition of a career devoted to the law and to the people and institutions that serve it.