Law for the Lay

When icon status comes with legal muscle 🎥🇦🇺

Ohhh our beloved Sydney Opera House, it isn’t just pretty — it’s protected 💋

Under NSW law (Australia), the Sydney Opera House Trust controls any commercial use of its image.

👀Translation: You can’t put these lush sails on your brand logo, ad campaign, or merch without getting the official say-so from its reps! Everyday tourist pics are acceptable if non-commercial. Tourism businesses and influencers are most likely to have a spot of trouble here, so share it with those in your networks that need to know 😉

Disclaimer: this is not legal advice, it’s general educative content only, please contact a lawyer for your specific circumstances.

Happy Thursday Beautiful Humans. Feel free to give the trauma p**n (the news) and EOY deadline stress a rest today and go dance somewhere - in your living room, your backyard, with the dog, holding your kid, twirling your loved ones. The chaos is consistent, but we choose how we move to it 💕 **nreference

Once upon a time, I stared out of a glass office overlooking the water in Melbourne. Tears rolled down my face as I realized that the Suits utopia didn’t suit my personality—not all the time anyway 😉

Eventually, two roads diverged in life…
and I—I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

I’ve since laughed with friends and family on mountains and through milestones on an international stage. I’ve looked people in the eye as they shared their important stories. I recently held my nephew just days after he was born. That, to me, is my utopia: quality time and intentional living in between the hard work 🖤

I wrote about some little lessons from this digital nomad experience in the launch of The Legal Industry: In-House, Australia and New Zealand Edition. Big thanks to the editors for reaching out—I look forward to being part of a more meaningful movement in the profession across APAC 👩🏼‍⚖️🌏

Happy International Woman’s Day 💃

Putting a spot on the grid to pay tribute to a woman in my life who’s not only been my best mate for a good 16 years, but she’s also been my active camera woman internationally, life mentor and the most brilliant person to be locked up in an apartment in Chelsea with during a global pandemic.

Claire 🫶 (no tags for privacy)

Claire is the perfect example of someone who lifts up other people, listens intently, is wise beyond her years and when you tell her you’ve got a crazy idea she (often enthusiastically) helps you do a risk assessment on it so you don’t blow up your life.

Thank you for hanging out of trees and crawling on the ground in major European cities for me to get good camera angles, for swinging around on dance floors and eating my coloured mash potato without a care, for letting me a witness your life journey through the surviving and thriving moments of laughter and tears. You’re sensational company to have in life, one of a kind and I’m so glad I sat next to you on that bus. Love you💛

Tribute song: Billy J, from our Friday Playlist.

⚖️

🌈Sydney Mardi Gras Festival - a beautiful example of positive social change that followed from hard times, protests and a solid re-review of Australia’s justice system 🌈

In 1997, Tasmania became the last Australian state to decriminalize homosexuality. Many of us would have been kids then, which reminds us how recent this progress is—but also how far we’ve come! 🙌🇦🇺

Knowing our little planet earth is not perfect and that some countries still have a long way to go, I’m genuinely so proud that Australia continues to celebrate (so beautifully) the right to be yourself here and that each year we can pay our respects to the courage of those who fought for equality and the strength of the LGBTQ+ community. Every step forward is a step towards a more inclusive future. For my friends and family who are part of this community - we love you, we see you, we’ll always have your back💜

Let’s keep encouraging compassion, visibility, acceptance, and human rights for all! 🏳️‍🌈✨

C’mon Barbie, let’s go party… in rural Australia! 🇦🇺🦘

Living abroad for several years, I always loved telling the wholesome story of a small country town in Australia that annually yeets in a load of sand to their main street for a fancy dress Volleyball Competition & Party. And the best part is… this cheeky little place of Cootamundra is not even close to the beach🏝️

This landlocked town simply doesn’t need a beach to feel validated on the map, between the warm local community and influx of city slicker guests, they know how to throw a good time. This year I was fortunate enough to finally make the pilgrimage once again with my mates and it was a baller of a time🏐🪩

Interestingly, this event has been going since 2001 and the organisers do an incredible job every year (my mates and their families included). But when it first began, the town creators thought it was a bit nuts. Yet they did it anyway … and success followed!

On the drive back to the city, I thought about how successive generations could benefit from being inspired by out of the box thinking like this, as they join boards of local Councils and seek to create their own local flare of fun. Maybe not the same, maybe something different 😏

Councils and Town Events of course have rules to be followed, but they are also open to be challenged and perhaps with a little bit of creativity, we can stop everyone doom scrolling for a weekend and remember what it feels to be a part of something truly special - wherever your reside 💛

Thanks for having us Cootamundra 👋🤠

The shirt, will be worn every year.

Stay safe all, have a jolly old time irrespective of your belief system and place in the globe. Love, the blonde, who still has jet lag somehow 🇦🇺❤️✌️🎄

Having some down time today and flopped onto the internet..

In Australia, it wasn’t until the 1980s that female life savers were formally accepted within the Surf Life Association of Australia, although many women did play active roles as lifeguards well before this, including during WW2 when many of the male guards were off serving in overseas conflicts.

It is kind of wild to me that the internet, personal computers and hand held phones were well underway as bold technological advancements and yet the formal “yes you can legit save someone ” was held off for many female athletes for so long. Oh well, better late than never eh! (Thank god you’re all here)🌊

Lovely to see such a good turnout for the this Summer too - all genders - doing a top job 💪♥️💛

My Grandfather used to say in the context of celebrating achievements “Don’t lose your flat cap on the way to the palace”. A woke man of his age, embedded within the family a humble approach to success where you can be brilliant (if you work hard), but don’t forget where you’ve come from and thank the people who got you there. 

So in honour of that sentiment..

Thank you for my promotion to Senior Legal Counsel. The opportunities you’ve given me in this business have been incredible and I love being part of the growth journey, even through the challenges, even when tired, even when my hair looks bad. It’s all worth it, to celebrate your wins with you as you grow as an industry leader. It is indeed, the opportunity of a lifetime. 

Secondly, thank you Alex Wong for hiring me all those years ago and for believing in my professional skills and capabilities, trusting my judgement and mentoring me into a sharp global tech lawyer within an industry that evolves almost daily. This path is not for the faint of heart, but thanks to you - my self-esteem is stable but my ego is grounded. You’re a great mentor and our team is lucky to have you.

Thirdly, thanks to my wider teams of Legal and Business colleagues, my professional growth would have been stunted without your brilliant minds challenging me daily, asking questions, finding solutions, building things together and sharing the full spectrum of emotion. I value you, we do great things, we will continue to do great things. 

Lastly (but never least), thank you to my family and friends. I’ve always resided in a palace of my very own with your good company, love and unwavering support to be no other than..myself. 

Now, looking forward to the chapters ahead. *puts metaphorical flat cap back on head*

Don’t let my Australian accent and curly blonde hair fool you, I’m naturally a land dwelling mammal. I was raised in the country where my idea of good water sports was flinging off the back of boats attached by rope in big lakes or excitedly jumping into seasonal flood waters with a boogie board, hoping the former fence from our neighbour’s paddock didn’t catch my body with surrounding gum trees like a novelty sized sieve.

The idea of surfing in the open ocean was a daunting activity. A risk assessment my brain struggled to rationalise even when I lived on the coast for 7 years. I enjoyed running at it teasingly but never letting it take my whole body, I was always in control and sharks didn’t have big enough legs to run after me. So when I made the decision to go to a surf camp in Portugal this year, my best friend asked me if I was having a breakdown…

I wasn’t, but I did realise prior to making this decision that there was only a limited amount of “Summers” (good health permitting) in my lifetime where I could try this sport with no dependants or other life barriers. Portugal, has minimal shark attacks and marine life that want to kill you, so I thought once I get over those things and master just standing up, I’ll be sweet to increase the risk exposure in less forgiving terrain elsewhere in the world.

Funnily enough, this strategy worked. Thanks to my amazing instructors, I stood up time and time again, not thinking about the fears I held before. I also made incredible new friends from all walks of life and looked out at sunsets with internal peace as I wrote new chapters of my life. So I guess I’m sharing this to say, if you count the favourite seasons you have left in your life, you too can have your very own mental breakdown🤪Peace and Love ✌️🏄‍♀️

(Legal bit at the end of pics)

Summer Summiting with my co-pilot 💚

From 🇫🇷City to 🇲🇹Cittadella, there is a bit of residual Roman Law sprinkled here and a bit over there 👉

Pic 1: Paris, 2020
Pic 2: Gozo, 2024