One of Queensland’s leading Indigenous lawyers will shine a spotlight on First Nations family violence next week for the third instalment of James Cook University’s (JCU) Law Seminar Series for 2024.
Queensland Indigenous Family Violence Legal Service (QIFVLS) Principal Legal Officer Thelma Schwartz, with Deputy Principal Legal Officer Isabella Copetti, will present Victim Survivors of Family Violence: A First Nations Perspective at JCU’s Cairns campus and online on Tuesday.
The free seminar will examine an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander person’s experience as a victim-survivor of family violence within intersecting legal systems.
It will also examine the measures in place to achieve justice stemming from the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody in 1991 up to the recommendations from the Senate Inquiry into Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women this year.
Thelma has been a lawyer for more than 25 years and has led QIFVLS since 2015. She has worked extensively with First Nations peoples in the Northern Territory and regional and remote Queensland, including nine years as a criminal defence lawyer at the Aboriginal and Torres Strat Islander Legal Service.
In 2021, Thelma was appointed to the Queensland Women’s Safety and Justice Taskforce, and this year was appointed to the Queensland Sentencing Advisory Council.
Isabella joined QIFVLS in 2019 and works in child protection, domestic violence and family law.
The seminar will run from 10am to 11am and online at the Bada-jali City Campus, 36 Shields St. Register here.
For details of other presentations in the JCU Law Seminar Series, visit the website.
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