This year we are unable to hold our annual dinner due to COVID-19 and public health concerns. Our fundraising event this year will be an online panel discussion. You will need a mobile phone or a computer with audio to join the panel. The panel will focus on First Nations Justice and civil liberties challenges for Indigenous Australians. The discussion will be moderated by the 2019 winner of the NSWCCL Award for Excellence in Civil Liberties Journalism, Richard Ackland AM. 

As NSWCCL is a volunteer organisation and we do not receive any government funding, our annual fundraiser is the most important event we run each year.  Challenges for civil liberties and human rights have been acute this year and our organisation has been at the forefront in highlighting injustices particularly towards the most vulnerable in our community. We hope you will join us for this important discussion focussing on First Nations Justice.

2020 President's address and NSWCCL panelist
Nicholas Cowdery AO QC, President NSWCCL
Nicholas Cowdery AO, QC, became the President in October 2019. A barrister, Nick was the Director of Public Prosecutions for New South Wales from 1994 to 2011. Nick also served as President of the International Association of Prosecutors from 1999 to 2005.

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 We welcome our 2020 guest speakers/panelists:

Judge Matthew Myers AM
His Honour Judge Matthew Myers AM, is the first Aboriginal Australian to be appointed to a federal court. He is a Judge of the Federal Circuit Court of Australia and an Adjunct Professor at the Faculty of Law, University of New South Wales. In February 2017 he was appointed as an Australian Law Reform Commission Commissioner to lead the Inquiry into Incarceration rates of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples. Judge Myers is also a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law.

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Sarah Hopkins
Sarah Hopkins is Co-Chair of Just Reinvest NSW and the Managing Solicitor of Justice Projects at the Aboriginal Legal Service ACT/NSW. She is an accredited specialist in criminal law and has lectured in criminal law at the University of NSW.

Sarah is a member of the NSW Bar Association’s Joint Working Party on the Over-representation of Indigenous People in the NSW Criminal Justice System. Throughout her career Sarah has served on numerous committees including the Criminal Law Committee of the Law Society of NSW, the Steering Committee for the Red Cross Vulnerability Report 2015, and as Vice President of the NSW Council for Civil Liberties. In 2017 Sarah was named the Community Lawyer of the Year by the Women Lawyers’ Association of NSW.

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Teela Reid
Teela Reid is a Wiradjuri and Wailwan woman, lawyer and human rights activist. She has experience practicing in criminal, civil and administrative law. Teela was involved as a working group leader on s 51(xxvi) in the Constitutional dialogue process that culminated in the Uluru Statement from the Heart. Teela was Australia’s Female Indigenous Youth Delegate to the United Nations Permanent Forum in New York. 

Teela completed her postgraduate Juris Doctor from UNSW Law Sydney and was named on the UNSW Law Deans Women of Excellence List. Teela was the first Aboriginal person to be elected on the UNSW Law Society as Vice-President (Social Justice), where she was the founding director of the UNSW Law First Peoples Moot. She was also the Inaugural recipient of the NSW Indigenous Barristers Trust award. In 2017, Teela was selected to attend Harvard University as a global Emerging Leader.