Fair Player

Lawyer JESSIE SMITH never stops fighting for the marginalised, be it in court or via her fair-trade accessories label that benefits HIV+ women, says GEORGINA SAFE.

- Georgina Safe

When Jessie Smith meets BAZAAR at an organic cafe in Sydney’s Surry Hills, she has come from a case at the Supreme Court of New South Wales in which she represented a man charged with membership of the PKK, a Kurdish secular nationalist movement that has gone into battle against ISIS.

“I’m passionate about the protection of our democratic safeguards when it comes to international terrorism, foremost the right to a fair trial and the presumption of innocence,” Smith says. With joint conduct of Australia’s largest terrorism and national-security law practice at Stary Norton Halphen, Smith explains that her job requires her to represent all sides of the Syrian conflict, both pro- and anti-ISIS, without fear or favour. “Our waiting room can be an interesting political storm at times,” she says with a laugh.