When Andrew Panna SC and Maria Barbayannis began looking into the number of Australian lawyers with Hellenic backgrounds, not only were they taken aback by the sheer volume, but what they noticed were many of them were in very senior positions. In the top end of their career, they were coming across many Hellenic Australian legal practitioners who were judges, senior solicitors and barristers and nipping right at their heels are the second, third and fourth generation juniors. The next generation who will work their way up too, to make a name for themselves and carve their own path in law. Yet with this in mind, Mr Panna and Ms Barbayannis realised one thing – that although the legal practitioners have their courts, offices, chambers to identify with their career path, they don’t have a place to combine this with their cultural background – to celebrate being Greek lawyers.

“It’s a place where you can come as an Australian lawyer with a Hellenic background, meet others, know who they are, what their skill sets are,” Mr Panna explains to Neos Kosmos. “It’s a forum for people to network but also a forum to discuss legal issues, welfare issues and Greek issues – somewhere to focus on the application of the law and the Greek community.”

The nine member committee is spearheaded by both Panna, the president, and Barbayannis, as vice president. The national patron of the association is Chief Justice Chris Kourakis of South Australia and the Victorian patron is Justice Emilios Kyrou. The other members of the committee include: Joseph Tsalanidis, treasurer; Alexi Costa, secretary; James Samargis; Koula Politis; Nicholas Venizelakos; Lazarus Zikou and Eleftheria Konstantinou.
Ms Barbayannis said one of the aims of the association is to offer mentoring to younger lawyers and students of the law – and through this, speak with universities who offer law and work together to set up and eventually provide scholarships for students.

As it stands, law students and people with law degrees who aren’t practicing can also join the association, and government staff and public servants who deal with legal matters are also welcome to join. And because there aren’t articles of clerkships for up and coming legal professionals, many are at a loss to know what their alternatives are, so the association will act as an ‘exchange of information’ for these students.

“There isn’t a place where young lawyers of Hellenic background can go to for assistance,” says Mr Panna, who adds that there are lawyers who are doing this independently – providing advice and mentoring.

“When you come into the law, there are a whole range of practices that are unstated and that only experience can teach you and it would have been helpful to have an association like this,” Mr Panna reflects.

“I think it’s time that we have a proper professional organisation where lawyers of a Greek background can come together and see what they can achieve.”
In Victoria alone, it is estimated that the number of lawyers with Hellenic background would be in the high hundreds, even pushing a thousand. But with three generations of lawyers of Hellenic descent, they aren’t easily recognisable given that names – which is sometimes the easy identifier – could have been changed through marriage or from being anglicised. The goal is then for this association to make waves in the legal community, as well as Greek, so that lawyers come out of the woodwork and identify through the forum.

Following the association’s official launch in April, Mr Panna says “once we start to find out what the members would like to achieve then we can focus more on those issues”.

The association plans to hold seminars and have prominent people in the legal profession give lectures. They will also look at people from non-legal backgrounds to give lectures on issues that would impact Hellenic Australian lawyers.

“We have a lot of very successful people in the community with a Greek background that can provide a great deal of information to others in a forum where we have a common heritage and we hope that would be attractive and they will join us.”

“In addition, we will provide links with lawyers in other places, like the Hellenic Lawyers Association in New York which is very successful, we could have links with lawyers in Greece,” adds Ms Barbayannis.

“The relationship between lawyers in Australia and Greek lawyers is expanding too,” she says, “as a lot of us are second and third generation and the people who migrated are passing away, and they need help with property, for example, so if we can liaise with lawyers in Greece, this would make it easier for them. So to have that relationship would become an exchange of ideas to be able to assist each other.”

Mr Panna says that the benefits of the association are not just for the members, it has a far reaching impact for the Greek community.

“There’s a lot of experience in this group, but there are other organisations that have more specific focus; we can provide a place they can come to if they need assistance in legal matters,” says Mr Panna.

This organisation will unite the lawyers through their cultural background. These lawyers have attributes of both the Hellenic culture with an Australian background. Mr Panna say Hellenic Australian lawyers have a “distinct ambiance about them”.

“Lawyers tend to focus on their work and don’t think too much to mix with members of their community and I thought it’s time to do something about that – meet and talk and mix with the community,” he says.

For more information on the Hellenic Australian Lawyers Association, you can contact Andrew Panna SC on akpanna@vicbar.com.au