Lawyer Nicholas Stewart nominated for NSW Australian of the Year

Stewart has been a Partner at Dowson Turco Lawyers (which declares its practice “proudly out and loud”) for nearly 14 years, a Fellow at University of Technology Sydney (UTS), a member of NSW Premier’s LGBTIQ Advisory Council, and a Chair of the Law Society of NSW Women’s Advancement sub-committee. He’s also President of Australian Lawyers for Human Rights (ALHR).

In 2018 and 2019, Stewart campaigned for NSW inquiries into LGBTI hate crimes and in 2022, he advocated for the special commission of inquiry into institutional responses to LGBTI hate crimes and homicides. In 2022, he was the winner of the winner of the Law Society of NSW President’s Medal.

In the afterglow of his nomination, LSJ Online spoke with Stewart about what the nomination means to him, the drive behind his career choices, and what is on his agenda of priorities in the near and longer terms.

He says, “The person who nominated me is a friend who is heavily involved in the Northern Beaches community, and an advocate for women, people with disabilities and the homeless. He told me he was nominating me about two years ago and I thought it was a joke. About a year afterwards, he asked me to send him ‘evidence of all the work you have done’ and I procrastinated for a long time until he sat with me and collated a file of my community work – going back to being a Lifeline telephone counsellor from 2003-2005.”

What it means

The nomination recognises an evolution, but also a necessary need for improvement, in the landscape for the LGBTIQA+ community.

Stewart says, “I think the LGBTIQA+ community can be hopeful of more progressive change. For example, last year the NSW Government established the inaugural LGBTIQA+ Premier’s Advisory Council, and I sit on the council with a diverse range of LGBTIQA+ experts. We are formulating the state’s LGBTIQA+ Inclusion Strategy and I am excited for finalising that next year. The Anti-Discrimination Act 1977 (NSW) is also being reviewed by the NSW Law Reform Commission, and I am keen for reform in this area because the Act allows a religious school to legally terminate a woman for falling pregnant outside of marriage or expel a student because they are gay or trans.”  

It’s not only the current progress at the front of Stewart’s mind. He is also focused on the historical hate crimes affecting the LGBTIQA+ community.

“The recently completed NSW Special Commission of Inquiry into LGBTIQ Hate Crimes led to several robust recommendations to the NSW Government, and all have been accepted. Some of these relate to the NSW Police Force’s relationship with LGBTQ+ communities,” he says.

“For example, one recommendation was that additional mandatory and ongoing training be provided to NSW Police Force officers concerning the LGBTIQ community, including but not limited to training on the importance of cultural awareness and the use of appropriate and inclusive language; trauma-informed communication and engagement with partners, families, friends and loved ones of victims in the specific context of the LGBTIQ community; and consideration of the role of conscious and unconscious bias and the potential impact of bias on investigations. So, I think it is critical that inquiries are conducted when it is evident that injustices have gone on for decades without action by those empowered to investigate.”

In regard to the daily stories he hears from clients, he admits “we see it all”.

Stewart says, “In the criminal law category, this year we assisted a gay man with profound disabilities targeted for a search of his electronic equipment when disembarking from an international flight at Sydney Airport. He was accused of having illegal material on his phone, detained and questioned without legal assistance, only to be released and provided his belongings without police involvement.”

In the employment law space, he says, “We assisted a gay man who worked as a car salesman at a Chinese auto company, and who experienced homophobic harassment in the workplace including being told that a car he had driven had to be ‘cleaned and disinfected’ and that he was no longer allowed to take customers on test drives.”

He also recounts that in the estates space, “colleagues have told me of a client who had to go to great lengths to prove his intimate relationship with his deceased partner when a prominent funeral home relied solely on the family of the deceased’s representations, to keep our client from obtaining the death certificate for his partner. In the family law team, I am told by colleagues that trans clients are regularly facing custody disputes where their trans status is being weaponised by former partners.”

For young or not-so-young lawyers who are setting out on the first decade of their career, Stewart says, “I think the best advice is to be authentic in your pursuits, follow your interests and develop your skills along the way.”

Advocacy ‘uncomfortable’ at times

Indeed, he’s been walking the talk.

“I have advocated for truth and justice for the LGBTIQA+ community for a long time, and sometimes the advocacy has been uncomfortable,” he admits. “I am constantly forced to out myself as a gay man in those conversations, and don’t always know the ideologies of the people I am speaking to. But I am also an advocate for women in the legal profession and have a policy of only briefing women barristers unless a client has a particular preference. That caused me to be the subject of an article in The Australian, which suggested I was engaging in discrimination against male barristers. That article made me feel personally attacked and took me a while to realise that people will often have something to say when you take a firm position advocating for any particular group.”

He reflects that “being a human rights lawyer and occupying roles such as the President of Australian Lawyers for Human Rights, sometimes creates an expectation that the domestic law can solve everyone’s human rights claims, when it cannot.”

Still, despite taking some hits, Stewart has proven that taking the lead matters to his clients, his community, and the broader NSW and Australian communities.

Main image, Nicholas Stewart with Premier Chris Minns. (Courtesy of Nicholas Stewart)