From Australia’s Jewish Past: Joan Mavis Rosanove – a trail blazing Australian lawyer
Joan was born in Ballarat, Victoria, on 11 May 1896 to Mark Lazarus, a barrister and solicitor, and his wife Ruby.
Joan Rosanove
She was one of seven children and attended, as many Jewish children did at the time, Christian girls’ schools before studying law at the University of Melbourne.
Her father initially tried to dissuade her from following him into the male-dominated profession, but realising how determined she was, he relented and accepted her as his “articled clerk.” He had practices and clients in both Ballarat and Melbourne, and Joan gained experience from both, travelling by rail (a three-hour journey each way) between them. She endured many a long day, reaching home in Ballarat in the evening for a quick supper and sometimes interviewing clients for hours afterwards. She graduated in law from the University of Melbourne in 1917. At the same time as Joan would have been admitted to the Bar, she was amongst the many male students returning from First World War Service needing to complete their law degrees and be admitted, and her admission did not take place until 2 June 1919.
She was the first woman to be admitted to the Bar, and certainly the first to practice exclusively as a barrister. The press observed early in her career that it would be “strange” if she had not opted for a career in law: “Her father is a lawyer; her brother is a lawyer; her grandfather and her great-grandfather were lawyers; her mother has three brothers, all barristers, and her father’s only brother is a barrister” (Telegraph, Brisbane, 1931)
From the Victorian Bar Office:
“On 2 September 1923 , Joan Rosanove (née Lazarus) became the first woman to sign the Bar Roll in Victoria .
When Joan appeared in the High Court in 1924, she was asked ” And with whom is my learned friend appearing?” Joan retorted, “I am appearing with myself. I am the leader of the female Bar.”
During her first two years as a barrister, Joan had no proper chambers of her own. When one of Joan’s colleagues Philip Jacobs offered her his chambers, the news sparked an emergency meeting of the chambers’ directors. They threatened to cancel Jacobs’ lease if he lent his room to Joan.
Humiliated, Joan left the Victorian Bar in 1925 and established a thriving legal practice as a solicitor specialising largely in matrimonial and criminal cases.
“To be a lawyer, you must have the stamina of an ox, and a hide like a rhinoceros, and when they kick you in the teeth, you must look as if you hadn’t noticed it.” – Joan Rosanove QC
In 1949, Joan returned to the Bar and accepted a position as a reader to the less experienced Edward Ellis. Joan soon became a prominent barrister in matrimonial law. She could argue a case standing all day – a feat that male barristers had previously deemed too physically demanding for women who sought success at the Bar.
In 1965, Joan was appointed Victoria ‘s first female Queen’s Counsel.
Since her death in 1974, Joan has continued to be remembered for blazing a trail for women at the Bar. In 2000, the Victorian Bar named Joan Rosanove Chambers in her honour.
“I can never see why it is not considered the hallmark of success to have a brain like a woman!” – Joan Rosanove QC
Joan Rosanove QC – 1965 Interview from “On Being a Sheila”, courtesy Nine Network Australia.
In 1920, she married Emmanuel (‘Mannie’) Rosanove, a dermatologist, and they had two daughters. They moved from Ballarat to Tocumwal – Southern Riverina, New South Wales – where Mannie opened a medical practice before moving to Melbourne in 1923. In September of that year, Joan became the first woman in Victoria to sign the Victorian Bar Roll. She was not able to obtain a room in the Selborne Chambers, which housed the male-dominated profession. She certainly wasn’t deterred by this and went on to establish a successful practice specialising in matrimonial law and soon became known as one of Melbourne’s best divorce practitioners and expert advocates. By 1930, Joan had become renowned for fighting for women’s interests in divorce cases, where the law operated in favour of husbands and she spoke out about injustice against women and people of non-English speaking backgrounds.
Between 1932 and 1933, Joan, Mannie and one daughter travelled to Canada, USA and Britain – a second daughter being born in Britain. Once back in Melbourne, the family settled in Toorak. On one occasion, in late 1934, she was approached to defend the Jewish Czech journalist Egon Kisch – a Communist informer and anti-war activist born into the German-speaking Jewish community of Prague, Czechoslovakia. He defied his immigration exclusion order and jumped five metres onto the deck of Station Pier, breaking his right leg. At times, Joan would visit the ship where Egon was being held to help secure his release.
On 7 October 1949, Joan re-signed the Bar Roll and worked exclusively as a barrister. After twenty-five years of exclusion, she succeeded in having chambers in Selborne by accepting a position as ‘reader’ to Edward Ellis, a sympathetic barrister with much less experience and seniority, who offered her his room when he moved to Western Australia. She had previously been offered chambers by Philip Jacobs, a prominent barrister whilst he travelled overseas, but she encountered discrimination and was forbidden to take up his offer. She did not believe women who married should have to remain at home to be supported by their husbands and continued to advocate for women’s access and entry to professional life, as well as equal pay. The Melbourne Herald – 8 November 1948 – wrote that ‘’she estimated that she was handling one-eighth of all Victorian divorce cases.’’
Between 1954 and 1965, she made several applications to “take silk”—to become a senior member of the Bar – known as a “Queen’s Counsel” (QC), and despite her seniority and excellence as a barrister, she was rejected because of sexist inequality. She was finally made a QC in Victoria on 16 November 1965 and took ‘’silk’’ in New South Wales in 1967. The delay had thwarted her hopes of becoming the first female QC in Australia rather than the second. Many of her peers concluded that ‘she had been shabbily treated’. She went on to specialise in defending women and appeared on two occasions on behalf of two women accused of murder – one of whom was allegedly a ‘backyard abortionist’. Although the women were not acquitted, in both cases, they were found guilty of the lesser charge of manslaughter. She appeared in three murder cases and was the only woman barrister at that time who had been briefed to defend persons accused of murder.
Joan continued to fight for women’s rights and justice within her own profession as well as for all women. Without her, the Bar and the legal society would have taken longer to accept women in the profession. She rubbed shoulders with a rogue’s gallery of criminals she defended in scores of trials. She advocated uniform divorce laws in Australia, and, in fact, modern divorce reforms have been based on her recommendations. As President of the Soroptimists Club of Melbourne (the Soroptimists is a global volunteer organization that provides women and girls with access to the education and training they need to achieve economic empowerment.) and the Business and Professional Women’s Club, she lobbied women to be involved in social action. She had a deep faith in the sanctity of marriage – yet she handled the legal break-up of thousands of families. In 1954, Joan researched and prepared a report, which was published in the Australian Law Journal, on the divorce laws and proposed changes.
In 1950, she arrived at an official reception by the incoming Victorian Governor at State Parliament and was compelled to leave because only male barristers were deemed eligible (Melbourne Herald, 8 June 1950). Joan was short in stature, photogenic, and known for her ready wit, stylish wardrobe, and long cigarette holder She did not hesitate to mingle her aggressive and penetrating courtroom style with recourse to charm and flirtatiousness in her attempts to influence judges and sway juries. She retired in 1969 and died of a heart attack on 8 April 1974. On 14 April 2000, the new Victorian Chambers were named in her honour. Her longstanding friend since childhood was the ‘great’ Prime Minister, Bob Menzies. Her daughter Margaret “Peg” Lusink was later to become Victoria’s first woman Family Court judge
The AJHS acknowledges the following references in the preparation of this story:-
Australian Dictionary of Biography – Barbara Falk; Foley’s Barrister List; Wikipedia; Victorian Government Records; Hyman Encyclopedia of Jewish Women – Hilary Rubinstein; Victorian Bar News 2015
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