With you for safety and justice
At Women’s Legal, we stand beside women and non-binary people as they reclaim safety and control after violence. We’ve been doing this work since 1982.
Our strategy: support early, work together, prevent harm
We are focused on making sure women and non-binary people can get help early and feel safer sooner.
By working together with others and improving the system, we’re helping build a future free from violence and discrimination.
Working together to make laws better and systems safer
We provide free legal help for women and non-binary people experiencing family and sexual violence.
We support people who support them, through training for workers and services across Victoria.
We advocate for change, working to improve how the legal, child protection and family violence systems respond to violence.
We see the full picture
Gender isn’t binary or fixed.
Women and non-binary people are more likely to experience violence from men.
Our intersectional feminist framework helps us understand that while gender inequality drives family and sexual violence, people's experiences are also shaped by other systems and power structures like racism, culture, class and disability.
By taking this approach, we better understand what people are going through and the systems around them.
This helps us provide safer, more responsive support and work to improve laws, policies and practices, particularly for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and other culturally and racially marginalised people.
In action, our intersectional feminist framework means:
- we listen first
- we are trauma-informed
- we support the whole person
- we work as a team
- we keep learning
- we target our services to those who need it most
- we challenge unfair systems
- we share power and stay accountable
Our values
Authentic
We are honest and accountable. We seek to learn from our successes and failures.
Purposeful
Our work leads us to achieve our strategy. We invest in learning and continuous improvement to achieve our impact.
Collaborative
We value and actively foster involvement of a diversity of views, experiences and expertise to work together to achieve better outcomes.
Courageous
We take the challenging path to learn, grow and achieve our strategy.
Inclusive
We actively listen and ensure that marginalised voices are centred in every forum we create.
We support self-determination
We collectively uphold a deep respect for First Nations people and their cultures throughout all aspects of our work.
We work to support self-determination by working alongside Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to shape and improve our services and how systems respond to them.
Our Reconciliation Action Plan is one formal way that we show how Women's Legal will shift our policies and practices to help achieve this.
Reconciliation Advisory Committee
The Reconciliation Advisory Committee guides our approach to reconciliation, ensuring our work supports the self-determination, wellbeing and resilience of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
It brings First Nations knowledge and leadership into our decisions, helping shape our plans, priorities and actions so we can deliver meaningful, accountable change.
Current advisors
Karri Walker is a proud Nyiyaparli woman. Karri is currently the Senior Lawyer at the First Peoples' Assembly of Victoria, where she is working on the nation’s first Treaty process. Prior to this role, Karri worked as a commercial lawyer at Arnold Bloch Leibler.
Karri is deeply committed to justice and self‑determination. She sits on the Board of Fitzroy Legal Service and on the Advisory Council of the Indigenous Law and Justice Hub at Melbourne Law School. Last year, she completed a Master of Laws at Harvard Law School.
Karri’s other relevant experience includes Co‑Chair of Fitzroy Legal Service's Self‑Determination Network (developing a Reconciliation Action Plan), Co‑Chair of Arnold Bloch Leibler’s Indigenous Solidarity Network, and Member of the Advisory Council of the Indigenous Law and Justice Hub at Melbourne Law School.
Rhiannon Busch is from North Queensland, a proud Tagalaka and Taepithiggi woman, and currently lives and works on Wurundjeri Country in Melbourne.
Rhiannon is the General Manager of the Indigenous Programs Division at JY Australia, where she leads initiatives focused on creating culturally safe pathways and leadership opportunities for First Nations people. She is also responsible for delivering cross‑cultural responsiveness training to organisations, supporting understanding and respectful relationships between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and the broader community.
Rhiannon is an army veteran and is currently completing the Community Directors Corporate Governance Diploma to further strengthen her contribution at board and advisory levels.
Adrienne Lipscomb is a proud Wiradjuri woman living in Wangaratta.
Adrienne is a registered mental health nurse with over 15 years’ experience working in many areas of mental health. Adrienne is currently working as a Senior Therapeutic Practitioner in the Aboriginal Children’s Healing Team within the Victorian Aboriginal Child and Community Agency (VACCA).
In this role, Adrienne works with Aboriginal families experiencing a wide range of challenges to their social and emotional wellbeing including in the areas of family and sexual violence and provides culturally safe supervision to the family violence team.
Let's work together
Work with us to improve the support available to woman and non-binary people experiencing family and sexual violence.