JATL sat down to have a chat with Monica Taylor, who has recently departed from the Director role at the UQ Pro Bono Centre, and has embarked on a new chapter of her career at the Queensland Council of Social Services. Within the interview we discuss a variety of things, including how Monica first got involved with the Centre, her most memorable moments while working there, and her departing advice for law students.
Foreword: JATL would like to thank Monica for everything she has done for the Centre, and for the broader School of Law. She has played an important role in many students' university experience, and she has been instrumental in turning the UQ Pro Bono Centre into what it is today. We want to thank her for her tireless efforts, and we wish her the best of luck for the future. She will be greatly missed!
How did you first get involved with the UQ Pro Bono Centre?
I had been working in various roles in community legal centres in the early 2000s. The law school had just established the UQ Pro Bono Centre and staff were operating it themselves in a modest fashion. At the time the Head of School was Professor Ross Grantham. There was a view that workload had reached a point where some dedicated staffing was needed. I was invited to apply for a role. Initially, the role was really small. It was only two days a week on a seven-month contract. At that time I was also working at Tenants Queensland, so I was doing tenancy law advice, and UQ Pro Bono Centre work, until over time the Centre’s position grew to a point where it became a stable, continuing role within the school.
So, you began the position essentially when the Centre was in its infancy?
Yes, and that was very exciting – starting from scratch, building the Centre from those humble beginnings and bringing staff and students with us on that journey. It was not long after I started that we established the Student Advisory Panel – which was not part of the initial vision of the Centre but it became clear that you can only really have an authentic Centre if it has student voice woven into its design.
From your perspective, how has the UQ Pro Bono Centre changed from when it was first established to what it is now?
Back when the Centre first started, it was really just research, community legal centre placements and maybe some front desk roles. It now has a much greater diversity of offerings in terms of what students can do. Now we have, for example, the Barrister Assistance Team for students who are really interested in advocacy, mooting and crafting legal argument. We have our work with the Papua New Guinea Supreme and National Courts. This has opened up an avenue for students who are interested in comparative constitutional law, legal pluralism, and administrative law in a cross-cultural context. The Law Education & Outreach project is the Centre’s community legal education arm. There is also the Manning Street Project, which actually has been going on since the Centre’s inception. So, I guess now we have a nice smorgasbord of options for students in terms of what drives their passion, and where they can dip in and try new and different pro bono centre tasks.
How would you describe the culture at the UQ Pro Bono Centre?
I think the culture is really reflected in our strategic plan. We are values-driven and this guides what we do. I think one of the awesome things about the Centre is that nothing is done with a competitive spirit. It’s always about working collaboratively together in partnership. Also, fairness and inclusion are really key, so we want the Centre to be a place of welcome for all students that come through the law school. We don’t take a hard-line in terms of merit, GPA or excellence. We want students to really feel that they’re part of something bigger than themselves, that they can contribute to the benefit of others.
What is your proudest achievement and/or most memorable moment from working as a Director at the UQ Pro Bono Centre?
I am pretty proud of the Climate Justice Initiative that we recently started, because I think it’s so timely. It matches so well with where students’ passion and focus are at, and it’s doing work that is hugely important and impactful. I was also looking at the Bushfires Royal Commission’s website yesterday and found the submission that students had written. This shows that there is an opportunity for students to really be at the forefront of work in that space.
A memorable moment for me was when we signed the Memorandum of Understanding with the Chief Justice of Papua New Guinea. We held a ceremony on campus. I have done many things in my legal career, but until that point I had never hosted a diplomatic event with national flags on the table and official signings. That was pretty cool, and a lot of fun as well.
There have also been some really fantastic overseas opportunities. We have taken students to the Asia Pro Bono Conference. There was this really cool moment where UQ law students, law students from the Singapore National University and from Indonesia were working together to come up with ways to have an Asian student pro bono network. It was great to see that happen!
What departing advice would you give to incoming law students who are considering undertaking pro bono work with the Centre?
I would say certainly join the roster early, but don’t over-commit yourself. Take the time to have a look at what’s out there and strike that balance between putting yourself forward, but also committing to your formal studies - because the balance is really important. There are only so many hours in a day. And have fun! It’s a nice chance to mentally piece together that fairly complicated jigsaw puzzle of access to justice. Doing pro bono work alongside your formal studies helps you build a more complete picture of what working in a public interest, human rights, climate justice or access to justice field is like.
You just said you would encourage students to join early – is there a reason for this?
We used to hear a lot from students that they wish they had known about the UQ Pro Bono Centre earlier on in their degree. There was sort of a last sprint for them to do something before they graduated, whereas if you join early, the pressure is off in terms of time. You have got four years at UQ, depending on whether you are doing a dual or single LLB. You have that time to observe and see what is coming through the roster in terms of offerings. You get that degree of planning, whereby you might say “I really would like to do Manning Street Project, but I might not do that until I’m in my third year”. You can have more of an intentional approach to it.
Is there anything you will miss about working in the Centre and within the broader School of Law?
Are you kidding? Oh my gosh - I will miss the students so much! I love working with law students. I really do. You guys have so much energy and enthusiasm and are just a real joy to get to know. That’s what I’m going to really miss. And I am going to miss my colleagues as well. There are some terrific people working in the law school who are doing really interesting and important work. That’s definitely something I will miss.
We have a general pro bono question for you. Do you think that pro bono work should be mandatory for lawyers?
Ah, that old question. So, I fall on the side of no, I don’t think it should be mandatory. I think it should retain its aspirational but encouraged position within the profession. Pro bono is really sort of an inherent professional obligation of lawyers. Making it mandatory might send a message that it’s an effective substitute for a fully funded legal assistance sector – and I don’t think that’s fair on lawyers. I think lawyers should be paid for the work that they do. They shouldn’t be forced to work unpaid to provide a stopgap for a system that is underfunded by government. It’s really important that we don’t take our foot off the pedal when we’re talking to government about what is an effective system of public legal service provision. So that’s one of the big reasons why I think it should retain its aspirational character.
There are some interesting international examples of mandating a set number of pro bono hours as a precondition to your admission to practice – they’ve done that in New York and Singapore. But even that I am not so sure on. I think it’s really about a cultural build rather than regulatory enforcement.
There’s also the issue of work quality when people do not have a genuine interest or desire to do that work. It is really important that if you do decide to take on a pro bono matter, you do so with as much professional diligence, attention to detail, excellence and dedication as your fee-paying work. If people are just doing it because they have to then work quality may be an issue.
What is a lesson you have learned, or something you will take from your time as a Director of the UQ Pro Bono Centre, that you think you can bring into CLC practice or QCOSS which is where you are working now?
As I said in my interview with Rachel - you take something from every job you do. For me, I now have a good understanding of how universities work, and the systems at play. I appreciate what complex organisations universities are, and how there are champions within schools, faculties, and even at the central administrative level. Finding people you can collaborate with is time-consuming but highly rewarding. I think working at the Centre has also reinforced for me the importance of interdisciplinary work. For example, seeing our students that have done pro bono work on health justice partnerships - they have been able to learn the language of a different profession and discipline, and how that can ultimately provide a legal contribution to resolving a difficult problem. That is definitely something I will take with me.
Where are you headed to now, and what are your plans for the near future?
I am headed to the Queensland Council of Social Service - the peak body for the social services sector. My role is going to involve helping to strengthen and capacity-build that sector on COVID-19 recovery and on legislation like the Human Rights Act 2019. It’s a different role that I am really looking forward to getting stuck into. I am still very interested in unmet legal need, and at the moment I’m thinking a lot about climate change and how that is changing legal need, and how we need to adapt our service system to better respond. There are really lovely synergies between working within the social services sector, and also thinking about the legal assistance sector in terms of resilience to a changing climate.
That is interesting because you would never expect climate change to have an effect or such synergy in that sector or between sectors.
Yes, and we really need to flick that switch in our minds that climate change is not just about working at the Environmental Defenders Office (EDO) – it permeates everything. The poor and vulnerable are the least able to adapt, recover and cope with climate change events, so we need to be able to position ourselves to do the best that we can to support that sector of society.
Interview by Melanie Karibasic (Vice-President of Careers) and Sian Hur (Pandora’s Blog Editor)