The Scarlet Letter | Season 3 | Episode 2 | Lucy Nadj

Landing an internship in LA before even finishing uni is an ambitious career move, but Lucy Nadj has never done things by the book.In this episode, Monash Law alum Lucy Nadj takes us on a journey from her early days studying psychology to managing clients across fashion, beauty, and lifestyle. She shares how the glitz of LA internships, the real talk of early career struggles, and a knack for networking landed her at the helm of her own PR agency.

First published 2017.

The Scarlet Letter podcast is produced by the Feminist Legal Studies Group. This podcast features interviews with feminists connected to the law, discussing their life, work, and feminist perspectives. It's perfect for anyone passionate about feminist legal scholarship.

Find out more about the Feminist Legal Studies Group

Transcript | The Scarlet Letter | Season 3 | Episode 2 | Lucy Nadj

Tamara Wilkinson: [00:00:00] Good morning. I'm Tamara Wilkinson, and welcome to this episode of The Scarlet Letter, the monthly podcast of the Feminist Legal Studies Group at Monash University's Faculty of Law. Today, I'm joined by one of our current law science students, Lucy Nadj, who is the previous head of recruitment and training in the Prison Legal Education and Assistance Project, and has just taken on the role of leading the upcoming Community Legal Engagement Project.

The Prison Legal Education and Assistance Project, which is known as PLEA, is a program that delivers legal education in prisons to assist inmates to proactively handle their legal cases. It aims to provide inmates with the knowledge and skills needed to gain control in an environment where they may feel powerless.

PLEA recognizes the structural, [00:01:00] psychological, and cultural barriers that can prevent access to and participation in the justice system and seeks to overcome these barriers by empowerment through practical legal education. It's volunteer run and Lucy has been a volunteer at PLEA for how many years now?

Almost two. Yep. Fantastic. So that's what we're going to be talking about today. Lucy, thank you so much for joining me to talk about PLEA. I find this topic just incredibly interesting. I'm really excited to have you here.

Lucy Nadj: Thank you so much for inviting me on the podcast. I'm very excited to talk about the work that we've done.

Tamara Wilkinson: Excellent. So perhaps you can start by telling me a little bit about what volunteering for PLEA actually involves.

Lucy Nadj: So our volunteers are all law students and we run presentations in most of the metropolitan prisons. and occasionally do road trips out to regional prisons. And our main presentation is one on criminal procedure, which might sound really boring [00:02:00] to all the law students out there.

But for the people who are in prison, they don't have necessarily a great understanding of criminal procedure and their lawyers often don't have time to explain the processes to them. So our main presentation called Court Readiness goes through everything from, charge sheets to police briefs of evidence, what they, what a bail hearing is like, and then goes through the trial process.

And then sentencing and other considerations that all happen in the criminal process. We have other sessions as well. We run family law and family violence information sessions, ones on parole and some on like civil matters like debts and how to have your fines wiped using prison time and things like that as well, which is all in adult prisons.

And we also run court cases. programs for young people within Parkville Youth Justice Centre as well. We try to come from the angle of somebody who isn't a lawyer, or a cop, or a guard. So we try and be a little bit more approachable and relatable to [00:03:00] help break down those barriers. Because those barriers that are in place for these people accessing these things are all put up by those authority figures.

So we try Just make it a little easier for them to access the information. Yeah, present yourselves as an alternative to the people they're normally coming in contact with.

Yeah, and just try and be friendly and approachable and not so much, we're here to tell you what to do as opposed, to the other people.

So we're just trying to be on their level almost.

Tamara Wilkinson: Yeah. I feel like that would be really important, like that would be something very different and. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's amazing that you do this. It's so cool. And I think you were saying the other day when we caught up for a chat that you've recently been involved in rewriting the family law presentation.

Lucy Nadj: Yeah, so we had a family law presentation that was, predominantly on like the family law court side of things. Separation and [00:04:00] divorce property matters and child arrangements, which is needed in prison, but what was becoming more and more needed was information about family violence intervention orders, which we tacked onto the end of a presentation about family law.

But as it became a bigger and bigger problem, particularly within the men's prisons, because a lot of people are being remanded because they have a family violence intervention order or from breaching a family violence intervention order because of the bail act changes they really needed that information and that was taking over our session.

So I decided to rewrite the session. I flipped it. So family violence is the main kind of thing that we talk about and go through it from a really procedural perspective because I think most of the guys understood what it meant. meant to have a family violence intervention order they knew it meant that they couldn't, have contact and things like that, but what they didn't understand was how it was made, that it wasn't [00:05:00] actually criminal law, how to make one if they needed one and where to get help if they either needed an intervention order, knew somebody who needed an intervention order, or had been served with one.

So that was a very big area that was lacking.

Tamara Wilkinson: And it's interesting because it's to us as law student, lawyer it, it seems like pretty fundamental stuff that, that most people would or should know. And the fact that they don't, and they're in the criminal justice system and they still don't know it, is really like a bit scary.

Lucy Nadj: Yeah, I think It's so hard from a law student perspective, because we understand the law and it's taught to us and the procedures and processes are taught to us, from day one. And to be in that system and have little to no idea about what's actually going on around you and being fully reliant on a lawyer.

And I don't want this to come across like I'm saying legal aid doesn't do a fantastic job because they do, but they're just not. [00:06:00] So under resourced that they don't have the time to sit there with their clients and explain the nitty gritty. They just need to do the work and help the person and move to the next one.

So they often don't have a lot of. information being provided to them by their lawyers. And so they just sit there, hope, hoping that it will all be okay.

Tamara Wilkinson: Yeah.

Lucy Nadj: Yeah.

Tamara Wilkinson: You mentioned the other day when we were chatting that I think you signed up for, to volunteer for a PLEA in your first year of law school.

Encourage you to volunteer for PLEA. As a first year law student.

Lucy Nadj: I've always had an interest in helping people out. And I saw this pop up on the LSS page, just like a volunteer opportunity. And I was, I just thought to myself this is going to be a really interesting perspective. No one else was offering an opportunity to go into prisons.

While a lot of the CLCs do outreach work, they don't go into prison, they just do case work from the outside. So to be able to go [00:07:00] in . And be at the coalface, helping people out directly was something that I thought would be really interesting and also important. So I was like, yeah, why not?

I'll give it a go. And I think I was, being in first year, I didn't know a whole lot about the prison system or the criminal justice system other than what I'd heard in law school. So I was. I didn't have the hesitation about going into prison because I didn't know about it.

Tamara Wilkinson: Yeah, there wasn't that sort of fear potentially.

Yeah. Yeah,

Lucy Nadj: so I was just like, oh, this will be great. And it has been really great. And I think also being like an undergraduate student, I was, It's pretty fresh out of high school as well, and so I was just like, yep, I'll take on every opportunity I can, just get as much experience as possible, see if this is really for me.

And it was, fortunately.

Tamara Wilkinson: Georgie Tunny Yeah. Yeah, that's fantastic. Obviously you've been volunteering with PLEA for a few years now. What made you decide to take on a more official role in the program?

Lucy Nadj: [00:08:00] When I first started at PLEA, it was over like, very quickly it became like the summer break, so a lot of programs shut down, so I had a bit of time off, and then as it got started back up again, I unfortunately got laryngitis, which ended up lasting for quite a few months.

So I couldn't run classes within the prison.

Tamara Wilkinson: Yeah,

Lucy Nadj: So to stay involved, I helped out with other things. So we had events for our volunteers and we were recruiting new volunteers. So I helped out with the interview process and also training new volunteers. So because I'd been involved in that, I naturally progressed into the role of training and recruitment.

And I also wanted to take it on because training is. super important for our volunteers because we are all law students and we don't necessarily have all the legal knowledge required to go straight in. We really need to make sure our volunteers know everything, but also understand prison [00:09:00] processes.

What's the line between legal information and legal advice and how to not cross that line. And also training our volunteers to be able to cope with the situation.

Tamara Wilkinson: Yeah.

Lucy Nadj: It can be a little stressful sometimes. One in the sense that the prison environment is like very regimented and there's lots of like interruptions and that can be stressful.

But also in terms of often, particularly within those family violence sessions, there's a lot of disclosures from inmates. And while we don't actively encourage people to disclose It just sometimes naturally happens. People feel like they're in a safe space and they just want to talk about what's happened in their own personal experience, so dealing with that and dealing with like vicarious trauma and things like that was also something I thought our volunteers needed to have a really strong understanding of, so I was like, yes, I'll definitely be part of the training process to make sure that happens.

Tamara Wilkinson: Yeah, I imagine it would be really quite confronting. You're dealing with serious subject matter for, and like you said, you're young, the [00:10:00] volunteers are all law students. I imagine most of them are young. It's it's a heavy weight to bear.

Lucy Nadj: And I think also a lot of us are coming from a pretty sheltered world.

A lot of law students haven't come into contact with the criminal justice system as well and we haven't. We've been fortunate enough to finish school and go to university and a lot of these people haven't so

Tamara Wilkinson: yeah,

Lucy Nadj: just sometimes seeing the disadvantage that these people come from can also be really confronting and The general lack of literacy and things like that as well can also be quite confronting.

And you have people come up to you at the end, quietly saying Oh, that was a really great session, but I took nothing away from it because I can't read.

Tamara Wilkinson: Yeah. It's like you said, a very different world than where most law students, not all law students, but where most of them come from.

It makes you, appreciate the privilege of.

Lucy Nadj: Yeah, and I think that's what PLEA's trying to do. It's trying to break down that barrier [00:11:00] because education is the key to so many things in life, and having an understanding of the situation that you're in means that you can do something about it, and these people that we're coming in contact with can proactively work on their cases, help their lawyers not Do anything that they're not supposed to do, which makes work harder for their lawyers and things like that.

Yeah. But also with a lot of family violence law, people are self represented. There's less legal aid funding for things like family violence law because it is civil law Is a pretty simple process to actually do yourself like go to court and represent yourself. The magistrates are very understanding So it's a process that if you were out in the community would be very easy for somebody to get information on and do by themselves, but then you also have that added layer of being incarcerated and not having access to the internet to Google

Tamara Wilkinson: Yeah,

Lucy Nadj: how do I run my family violence case?

Tamara Wilkinson: Yeah And as [00:12:00] you mentioned not necessarily having the skills That you might need to interpret that information, even if you were able to get it.

Lucy Nadj: Yeah,

Tamara Wilkinson: definitely. We've touched on it a little bit already, but can you tell me about some of the challenges you've experienced while doing this volunteering work for PLEA?

Lucy Nadj: Yeah, I think on a big picture, like for every volunteer, the challenges with communicating with inmates is probably one of the biggest. challenges that we have. You're dealing with people who have varying levels of education, so you need to make classes engaging to people who have gone to university as well as people who might have not even finished primary school.

Yeah. And making sure that everybody walks away understanding. And there's also a lot of misconceptions about the law that go around in prison. So dealing with those can also be a bit of a challenge. You've got a lot of like backyard lawyers trying to spread their ideas about what [00:13:00] actually happens.

And then on a personal level, I only ever presented family violence and family law to males. in maximum security on remand. So the challenges of a young female law student who had pretty strong ideas about gender equality and family violence and try to advocate for survivors out in the community and things like that.

I had to really put aside my personal feelings towards people who perpetrate family violence in the beginning. But what I learned from that was that by educating. Perpetrators, you actually do help survivors as well.

Tamara Wilkinson: Yeah, you're in some ways, addressing almost the root cause.

Lucy Nadj: Yeah, and, like, when I reflect back, I think, look, I might not have got through to many people, but the people I did get through to, that makes a difference to their family, and that makes a [00:14:00] difference to their children, and things like that, and I think You've got to start somewhere when you're trying to break a cycle and I definitely think working with perpetrators is a good place to start, but it can be personally challenging at times.

Yeah, absolutely.

Tamara Wilkinson: I can imagine.

Lucy Nadj: Yeah, particularly when you're met with a lot of pushback from people who don't see their actions as wrong. Yeah. And then when you're trying to tell them that their actions are wrong under the legislation, that can be really hard to distance yourself from because they'll see you as the law.

Tamara Wilkinson: Yeah, who are you to tell me that my behavior is wrong,

Lucy Nadj: yeah. Yeah, and I'm like Actually, the government says it is. Don't shoot the messenger.

Tamara Wilkinson: Yeah. Yeah. So you mentioned to me the other day that you've taken on a new role in PLEA that's potentially going to be leading. in an [00:15:00] exciting new direction.

It's a bit up in the air at the moment. Could you tell our listeners a little bit about what you're hoping to achieve with this new direction?

Lucy Nadj: Yeah, so PLEA has been around for 10 years working solely within the prison system, and we're trying to branch out now into community legal education and use some of those skills that we've developed within the prison system to address some of the legal literacy issues within the wider community. Obviously, that's easier said than done. And it is still early days, but I think which the overall aim would be to just increase legal literacy across a broad range of topics for the wider community, not just the prison population.

So dealing with the prison population is a reactive space. People have already, found themselves within the criminal justice system. So if you can branch out into the community, while sometimes it might be reactive, it could also [00:16:00] be proactive and we could also help prevent people falling into the criminal justice system.

But it's a bit of a watch this space at the moment. And I think that exciting things can happen within the community space, but what the program looks like. It's still a little sketchy. Yeah.

Tamara Wilkinson: Yeah. I, it's the way with all new endeavors, isn't it? Like you go through phases of, different iterations while you're trying to work on something, settle on something that works.

Lucy Nadj: Yeah. And I think we've got a pretty strong model in terms of prisons. And with that model, we're able to go into new prisons and start up programs. Yeah. But what that looks like in the community can be really hard to envision when you're coming at it from the prison perspective. Yeah and I think the other thing is when we're in prison the people are there in a space already.

We don't have to gather them. Yeah I imagine they're pretty keen to. Yeah, there's [00:17:00] Programs are always popular within prisons. And ours is pretty popular amongst particularly the remand population because they're like actively involved in the like criminal proceedings, whereas the people who are sentenced, they're I'm finished now, but we still get kind of people particularly around parole time popping back in to see us.

In the community, people will have to come to us. We can't go to them. So I think that might be a bit of a barrier. But also a challenge that I'm willing to take on. Yeah.

Tamara Wilkinson: That's really exciting. And it's a different audience, hopefully a lot of the messages that you're getting across and like these basic legal concepts would be equally relevant to people in the community.

Like we know that there are massive rates of family violence in Australia. We know that like things like intervention orders, they're increasingly happening more and more. Increasing information around that can only be a good thing. [00:18:00]

Lucy Nadj: Yeah, I definitely think that there's a space for the family violence information within the wider community.

And I think if people understand, what an intervention order is particularly because they look different to how they looked ten years ago. With the they're not even new family violence laws. They've been around for 10 years now, but people are still stuck in the old system, particularly people who, are in kind of spaces where there's cyclical violence and things like that.

So just getting people up to speed on what the law looks like now, what it means what found, what the definition of family violence is, cause that's really confusing to people and things as well. So I definitely think there's a space for it. Getting people to come to us. It, I think if we integrate with community services, won't be as difficult, but I just hope that it it takes off.

Tamara Wilkinson: I'll certainly [00:19:00] be keeping a keen eye out to watch the developments in this space. Thank you so much for joining me today, Lucy. I since I first heard about PLEA, which was, only a few weeks ago, rather than when I was a student, because I was not as proactive as you are, I've just, I've been so interested.

I think it's fantastic what you're doing and all All your fellow volunteers. And it's really quite amazing that you're giving up your time to go into these, pretty scary confronting situations to help out the community. I have so much respect for that. Thank you so much for telling our listeners a bit about it today.

And thank you all for listening to this episode of The Scarlet Letter. You can catch us again next month on iTunes or on our blog which is found at feministlegalstudies. wordpress. com. And don't forget to subscribe to The Scarlet Letter to make sure you never miss an [00:20:00] episode.