C. Genevieve Jenkins Class of 2009
EcoDirections Pty Ltd, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

During summer 2007 I worked for a barrister’s office, EcoDirections Pty Ltd, in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. There were only five of us in the office—a barrister, a scientist-turned-negotiator, two office assistants, and myself—which was situated on the 5th floor of a building in downtown Brisbane, beside Queen Street Mall (several blocks of pedestrian-only shops and cafés) and a block from the Brisbane River. Never having been to Australia before, I was awed by the profusion of colorful plant and animal life both in and outside of the city. The walkways through the downtown “suburb” of South Bank are lined with graceful metal arches, strung with wires, along which bougainvillea grow in abundance — stunning in their pinks and purples and greens against the backdrop of blue sky (Queensland is the “Sunshine State”) and deeper blue river.

John Haydon, the barrister for whom I worked, represents clients in the Planning & Environment Court in Brisbane. The Australian legal system divides legal representatives into solicitors and barristers: the solicitors are the researchers, the organizers, the ones who put the briefs together; barristers are responsible for reading the briefs and conceptualizing an argument, which they must then articulate in front of a judge. Mr. Haydon is also the Convenor of the Environmental Law Roundtable of Australia and New Zealand (ELRANZ), which is the forum, ideally, for discussing and creating future environmental policies in Australia and New Zealand. ELRANZ maintains a neutral third-party facilitator who is responsible for involving all interest groups potentially affected by the law or policy and overseeing all of the negotiations. Thereby, ELRANZ creates a dialogue among lawmakers and the public, rather than simply a debate over an already-developed law.  

I was able to attend most of Mr. Haydon’s court sessions, as well as client meetings, and to help Mr. Haydon and his office assistants prepare affidavits. Additionally, I was able to spend some time with the Registrar of the Planning & Environment Court, Peta Stilgoe, for an all-day site inspection and negotiation. Seeing the process of case development, from the initial client meeting, to the negotiations, to the directions hearings, to the final trial, was eye-opening. No matter how often I read about the stages of case development, I was never able to understand it fully until I watched Mr. Haydon’s process and participated as on onlooker. While the High Court (Australia’s equivalent of the U.S. Supreme Court) was sitting in Brisbane, I watched two hearings, very early in my internship. No matter how many times I saw the barristers and judges, I never got used to seeing their horse-hair (or, sometimes, wool) wigs—with manicured grey curls (looking particularly out of place on long-haired, female barristers).

While attending all of these court sessions, meetings, and negotiations, I was primarily working on writing assignments for Mr. Haydon. The focus of these assignments was environmental alternative dispute resolution — particularly negotiated rulemaking as it could be implemented in Australia to improve public participation in making environmental law and policy. My initial article introduced the concept of negotiated rulemaking and developed the reasons for which it would be beneficial for environmental lawmaking; the second article, a longer piece, was a comparative analysis of the current policy-making procedures in Australian states and negotiated rulemaking, focusing primarily on their different levels of public involvement. I also co-authored an article about developing an environmental roundtable in North America, which Mr. Haydon later presented during a lecture at William & Mary Law School on August 30 and at a conference in Italy.  

Perhaps the most interesting thing about the internship experience was learning about the Australian legal system and getting to meet people at every level of it: judges, barristers, solicitors, judges’ associates, recent law graduates working in solicitors’ offices, registrars, clients, and experts. It was much like the process of learning a new language — feeling very ignorant and groping for the correct word at first, while watching other people communicate with ease and grace, but eventually realizing that this awkward process had helped me learn. This feeling that I could cope in any legal environment, given enough time to learn the basics, was reassuring and empowering, and was perhaps the most valuable thing I could have drawn from a summer internship in any country. Outside of work, I had the opportunity to travel and see much of Queensland’s beautiful landscape, including the Great Barrier Reef, Daintree Rainforest, Byron Bay, Lamington National Forest, and North Stradbroke Island.

View of Brisbane from South Bank

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