'Katrina Dawson will not be forgotten': award to encourage female barristers

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'Katrina Dawson will not be forgotten': award to encourage female barristers

By Michaela Whitbourn
Updated

The NSW bar is encouraging talented young female lawyers to practise as barristers with an award honouring the memory of Katrina Dawson, whose promising career was cut short when she was killed in the Lindt cafe siege.

As state coroner Michael Barnes prepares to release his report into the siege on Wednesday, a team of barristers from chambers in Sydney ran in the Herald half marathon on Sunday to raise funds for the inaugural award.

Lindt Cafe siege victim Katrina Dawson while she was a solicitor at law firm King & Wood Mallesons.

Lindt Cafe siege victim Katrina Dawson while she was a solicitor at law firm King & Wood Mallesons.

The $12,000 prize is expected to be awarded annually to a female lawyer with excellent academic qualifications and strong leadership skills.

"Katrina Dawson will not be forgotten by the NSW bar," Bar Association president Arthur Moses, SC, said on Sunday.

Ms Dawson, who was a rising star at the commercial bar, was fatally wounded by ricocheting shrapnel in the final moments of the December 2014 siege when police stormed the Lindt cafe.

"Katrina spent a considerable amount of time mentoring young women barristers and contributing to the collegiality of the bar," Mr Moses said.

"The award is part of a number of measures the bar is implementing to encourage more women to consider a career at the NSW bar."

Ms Dawson's close friend Anna Mitchelmore, a barrister from Sixth Floor Selborne Wentworth chambers in Sydney, will sit with a representative of the Katrina Dawson Foundation to recommend a recipient for the award.

Female representation at the bar is improving but women are still vastly outnumbered by men. Of the 2322 barristers practising in NSW, 503 or 21.66 per cent are women.

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Women make up 7.95 per cent of the 395 senior counsel or silks at the NSW bar.

Ms Dawson, who was a barrister from Eighth Floor Selborne Chambers in Phillip Street, topped her bar exam and topped the state in the Higher School Certificate in 1994, with a TER of 100.

Applications for the award, which is open to women who have passed the bar exam, close on August 1.

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