THE PROFESSION

LEIGH JOHNSON:"It Is My Life"

LEIGH JOHNSON is a lawyer with a reputation. It is a reputation earned by her frankness and honesty, on any subject, at any time and in any place. CATHLEEN SHERRY spoke to her for

'Polemic' about her life and practice.

If lawyers are self-interested, elitist and money-grubbing then Leigh John­son is no lawyer. An outspoken critic of the prison system with an unfailing commitment to her clients, including convicted murderer Gary Murphy, Leigh is a unique figure in the Sydney legal world. She devotes almost all her waking hours to her clients, not only providing them with legal advice, but visiting them in jail, finding them jobs, and generally trying to put them back on 'the right track'. For Leigh, law is not a profession, it is a 'calling'.

"She likes all her clients and is currently doing a

lot of murders, which she finds easier than other

crimes such as drug offences. 'Murder is a very human crime', she

says..."

Leigh decided to study law while working with the Sydney Rape Crisis Centre. As the only worker who could 'deal with the outside world', she worked with the Attorney General's Department in drafting the new rape legislation and the Premier's Depart­ment to set up the sexual assault units

in hospitals. Her experience led her to realise that there was a real need for lawyers who would explain to their clients what was going on instead of treating them like pawns who had no input or choice in their case. She knew that as a lawyer she would not have a 'sit down and shut up while I make the decisions' attitude to the very people she was supposed to be helping.

Leigh chose Sydney University for her degree. However, she admits that as one of the only two working class students in her year, she found it alien­ating. 'Just about everyone was the son or daughter of a judge or lawyer'.

As a student she worked hard, not just at her studies, but also as a regis­tration clerk for a solicitor, a jingle writer and a performer for Gorillagrams, and also as a disco dancer in a club. All this activity stood her in good stead for the all-consum­ing way she now runs her practice.

When asked why she chose criminal law, Leigh replies, 'I didn't; it chose me'. She feels a real affinity with her clients, saying that metaphorically they are the people she grew up with, and went to school with in a working-class Brisbane suburb. She likes all her cli­ents and is currently doing a lot of murders, which she finds easier than other crimes such as drug offences. 'Murder is a very human crime', she says, 'it is something anyone could do'.

Because of her personal commitment to the people she represents, Leigh is angry and upset by the 'get tough' prison policies introduced during Mi­chael Yabsley's term as Minister for Corrective Services. Tf I'm sitting down to dinner, my mind is never off my clients, who are sitting down in a cell in segregation, with no magazines, no TV, no books, no contact, nothing. No hope in life'. For Leigh, the old slo­gan, 'the jails are the crime' still rings very true. Long before the Human Rights Commission revealed that NSW jails were violating international law on treatment of prisoners, Leigh had taken up the issue with Amnesty Inter­national. She says, 'Anything would be better than the way Yabsley ran the jails. I can't believe he has a brain and a conscience and still made the changes he did. I used to think he was just an idiot, but I came to believe he was evil.'

"She expects police to verbal, to bash, to

fabricate and suppress evidence..."

Crime, Leigh says, is caused by lack of options, and jail leaves people with fewer options than they started with. They are thrown out on the street at

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the end of their sentence with $90 in their pocket, a plastic bag of belong­ings, no family, no friends, not even knowing where to catch the bus. All they know how to do is steal cars, sell drugs, and break into houses. 'What would you do?' she asks.

Jail should be an opportunity for prisoners to rehabilitate themselves so that they can broaden their options. Prisoners should be able to maintain their contact with family and loved ones, in particular conjugal visits should be granted, because to deprive adults of sexual contact is to warp them. 'They go in for break-and- enter,' Leigh says, 'they have no sexual contact for years, they watch pom movies the whole time, they get out and start raping and murdering, and people say "I always knew they were evil"- What do they expect?'

Leigh's ability to see things from her clients' point of view is most evident when she talks about Gary Murphy, convicted murderer of Anita Cobby. Leigh maintains that he is innocent; that according to Gary and the others, he was not even there. She says that Gary is a 'sweet person', and she won't stop working on his case until he is proven innocent.

In relation to the others, she says, 'Michael Murphy hates me, and I can assure you the feeling is completely mutual. And yet I can understand where they're all coming from, all of them. None of them had a chance in life, they are all victims. Apparently Michael Murphy was raped as a boy in boys' homes, and he wrote to various authorities for help but never received it.'

Leigh says that society needs to ex­amine itself to work out how a crime like the murder of Anita Cobby could ever happen. Instead it looks at boys like the Murphy brothers and says, 'Aren't they horrible', as a way of washing its hands and reassuring itself 'there's nothing wrong with me'.

The public reaction to the Cobby trial disgusted Leigh. She says it was like defending a black man before the Ku

Klux Klan. The Judge fell asleep at one point and the public gallery cheered when the accused were sentenced. Leigh cried. 'It doesn't make sense to me that people can be happy about those boys suffering, no matter what suffering they may have caused.'

Not only was the public reaction vin­dictive, it was sexist. The whole thrust of the outrage was that Anita Cobby was beautiful and she was married,

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which Leigh says is 'akin to being a virgin because you've gone from being the property of your father to the prop­erty of your husband'.

"Anything would be better than the way

Yabsley ran the jails. I can't believe he has a

brain and a conscience and still made the changes

he did..."

'A couple of years earlier a girl was raped and, I think, had her throat cut with the top of a rusty can on the cam­pus of Sydney University. There were rumours that it was some boys from St Paul's College. No one was charged, the media dropped it like a hot cake, and you know why? Because the girl

was a barmaid, she probably wasn't very beautiful, and the person who killed her was from a good family with a good upbringing. No one was out­raged about that. Anita Cobby did not deserve what she got. But neither did the boys who were convicted of her murder.'

Police corruption, along with the in­humanity of the prison system, is an­other hard fact of criminal practice that Leigh finds difficult to stomach. When she first began appearing in court, she was devastated by the extent of police corruption. She could not understand how the police could live with them­selves 'getting up and lying as obvi­ously as they do'. Now, with a few more years under her belt, she expects police to verbal, to bash, to fabricate and suppress evidence, and to intimi­date the witnesses for the defence. She says, T still get upset by it, I hate it, but I expect it.'

Judges, according to Leigh, tacitly support corruption, letting in unsigned records of interview and patching up

the prosecution's case if it has holes in it. She says that even judges who have been defence lawyers do this once they are on the bench and are part of the es­tablishment. 'I don't know why it hap­pens or how, but it does.' She even says, 'I wonder if even I'd do it; if it would affect me. I don't know.'

Leigh in fact has no aspirations to go to the bench herself, though she la­ments the scarcity of women judges in New South Wales. At the moment she is happy devoting her entire being to her work as a defence solicitor, putting in long hours for the benefit of her cli­ents. 'Sometimes I think that solicitors who remain aloof from their clients have the right approach because they can go home and live their own lives. I don't. I live alone and I spend every weekend at jail. I am driven by public interest, by doing something for some­one else.' With a rueful smile she adds, 'I think I need a dog - for affec­tion. But I live in an apartment ...' When asked if her work is worth sacri­ficing so much for, she simply replies, 'It's my life'. ■

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