LIFE MEMBERS
Rhonda Payget
Rhonda has a longstanding connection with community legal centres. She first volunteered with a CLC when she was at Law School and subsequently worked with Women’s Legal Services NSW, Welfare Rights and Legal Centre before she joined the Women’s Legal Centre.
Rhonda brought 20 years of experience in family law legal practice, and a great passion for delivering legal services in an organisation dedicated to feminist principles to the Centre when she joined. In this role Rhonda built up the Centre’s practice by:
- Building and enhancing relationships with the broader legal community and increasing the number of volunteer solicitors providing services to Centre clients;
- Strengthening relationships with community services to establish and maintain a warm referral network so that the most vulnerable women were able to access a legal service;
- Providing community education across the community to raise awareness about family law, family violence and the experiences of women in the family law system;
- Representing the Centre in a range of important forums including as National Co-Convenor of Women’s Legal Services Australia and as Chair of the ACT Law Society’s Family Law Committee. Rhonda also represented the Centre on the Steering Committee of the Family Law Pathways Network and as the Lawyer Representative of the ACT Victims Advisory Board.
Rhonda tells us that a particularly highlight was working with Traci Harris to assist Aboriginal women to present their redress claims in an oral format which enabled women to meaningfully participate in the redress process.