June Kenny recently became managing director of Dwyer Durack and is now one of the few Aboriginal women in Australia to lead a major law firm.
JUNE Kenny knows a fair bit about overcoming adversity and pushing through what to some may appear impenetrable barriers.
She’s the first female managing director of the almost century-old Perth law firm Dwyer Durack, is among the first indigenous women to head a law firm, and started her law degree as a mature-age student. Not surprisingly, Ms Kenny says her age has been an advantage in her law career, offering her life experience to complement her credentials.
“Being a good lawyer is not always just about knowing the law. There is a combination of being able to deal with people and having people skills, which as a mature age student you have got lots of other life experiences to draw on,” Ms Kenny says, speaking of what helped her to become a senior associate only three years into her law career.
And while she sees benefits in her relatively late career move, Ms Kenny saw her minority group status as a clear disadvantage while at university.
“Certainly when I was going through and doing my law degree, I thought it was an absolute disadvantage for anybody to know that I was indigenous; it was a disadvantage that I was a female and it was a disadvantage that I was 34 and wouldn’t be one of those 21, 22 year olds when I graduated,” she says.
“I felt I had to really compensate for all of those disadvantages going through law school. In the end, it wasn’t a disadvantage, obviously.”
With much of her current work focused on Aboriginal trusts, having a common thread with indigenous groups and individuals is advantageous.
“The Aboriginal groups, when they don’t know the lawyer, they can be a little bit hostile I suppose. That is where it is an advantage for me,” Ms Kenny told WA Business News.
“There is invariably somebody within a group who says, ‘I know your uncle’ or ‘I know your aunty’ and there is a better atmosphere between us, because I am not just some white lawyer coming in telling them how to do things.”
Ms Kenny’s interest in law was sparked during her 20s when she worked as a lawyer’s secretary in Adelaide and Melbourne.
She then lived in Taipei and Bangkok before moving home, at which time her mother introduced her to the law program at Murdoch University, which aimed to attract Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students.
Before starting her degree, Ms Kenny visited family in the Kimberley and fully appreciated the issues facing indigenous Australia.
“I got back here and got a lot of awareness of Aboriginal issues happening, through my family and other associates,” she says.
“My mother is a social worker, she had been involved in a lot of the drug and alcohol issues that are surrounding juveniles in the Kimberley region. She worked in Fitzroy Crossing. That was pretty much immediately before I decided to come back and do the law degree. And so I visited her there and had seen a lot of the problems that needed to be addressed.”
During her time at university and since working in the industry, Ms Kenny’s ideals have been somewhat altered.
“I think I became a realist really quickly,” she says.
“I have since decided, after being in law for quite some time, that it’s not a simple issue, there isn’t any quick fix on any indigenous issues and you sort of do what you can when it comes your way and if you have got the expertise to address it.
“Of course as I have moved on in law, I have focused one area of my practice on Aboriginal trusts, which has been good to put something back in to that area.”
Ms Kenny also aims to help in the education of indigenous students, feeling a responsibility to mentor the new generation of lawyers coming through the system, whether they be indigenous or non-indigenous, young or mature age.
Her passion for mentoring also comes from her school experiences.
During her childhood, the education of girls was not considered worthwhile in a cultural sense; a belief her father upheld.
“I went to a public school where hardly anybody did year 11 and 12, and you certainly did not go to university and my father’s attitude was it was an absolute waste of time to educate a girl so I was lucky to finish year 12,” Ms Kenny says.
“I saw him yesterday and he said, ‘I am so proud of you’. His attitude has changed slightly from then.” What is your family history?
My grandmother on my mother’s side is Aboriginal. My grandmother’s mother was Aboriginal, full blood, and she was married Aboriginal way to a Chinese man. My dad is a free settler. On my mum’s father’s side, they are originally from Mauritius.
How do you channel your passion for indigenous issues into your work?
You can be a mentor to other Aboriginal students coming through. It’s not just Aboriginal students I leave that to either, I try to assist any of the younger lawyers coming through. I did that right from the beginning. You’re a role model and I suppose, for me, I have been a role model for my immediate family. I am the eldest on my mum’s side, second eldest on dad’s side and trying to show them that they can get an education and do something with their life, not that there is anything wrong with not having a degree, but choose something and be happy with it.
How important are support programs at universities?
Extremely, really important. There are a lot of people, whether they live in Perth or Pilbara or the Kimberley, or the eastern Goldfields, that when they are young going through school they don’t get the encouragement to finish school or to go on to university. By being given the opportunity and alternative entry and the support you get in that program, it gives them an opportunity to do something they might not have done.
