Legal practitioner’s dedication highlighted at Attorney General’s Community Service Awards

22 Jun 2016

By The Record

Professor Mary McComish was one of three nominees shortlisted for the Attorney General’s Community Service Law Award for 2016, the results of which were announced in May at a breakfast held at the Parmelia Hilton. Photo: Mark Reidy

By Christine Jaques

The former Director of LifeLink agency Daydawn Advocacy Services, Professor Mary McComish, was one of three nominees shortlisted for the Attorney General’s Community Service Law Award for 2016, the results of which were announced in May at a breakfast held at the Parmelia Hilton.

A legal practitioner of more than 40 years’ experience, Professor McComish has taught commercial law at the University of Western Australia and The University of Notre Dame Australia (Fremantle campus) between 1996 and 2004.

She has also been Dean of Law at UNDA from 2004 to 2006 where her social focus encouraged students to view how their degrees could be utilised to provide service to the community.

In 2007, she became a volunteer advocate with Catholic agency, Daydawn Advocacy Services, established by Emeritus Archbishop Barry Hickey that year to defend the rights and aspirations of the Indigenous.

Mrs McComish was Chairperson of the Daydawn Committee of Management and subsequently Director for two years until February 2016, providing countless hours of pro bono work for clients with both legal and social issues. Her support was across areas of domestic violence, housing and homelessness; representation of those entitled to redress, having been abused whilst in care; and advocacy work on their behalf to a government level.

While Professor McComish’s role was to provide legal advice, she quickly realised that being present in clients’ lives was equally as important.

“As a Christian organisation, we don’t just service the needs of those who seek our help but we look on them as people made in the image of God who have innate rights,” she said.

The hardening of the government’s three-strike policy in 2011 resulted in Aboriginal women and children being put at particular risk of eviction. Professor McComish sees the policy as causing widespread harm in a culture where family is paramount and women are often placed in situations of having to take in family, which may then cause disruption and complaint in the community.

As a direct result of her involvement in the ‘whole’ person, she has been instrumental in providing support to many people, often befriending them in the process, and ensuring that gaps in civil law services for Aborigines and barriers confronting them, are narrowed.

Although Professor McComish was not the ultimate recipient of the Attorney General’s award, the significance of her nomination cannot be underplayed.

Her tireless and generous giving of legal knowledge, time and support over many years stands as testament to her character, strong social beliefs and empathy.

Daydawn, and its clients, have undoubtedly been enriched by her association with this particular Catholic agency.