Shouting the Bar: barristers are upending funding models to be more inclusive
Newly-launched Omnia Chambers is part of a fresh generation of barristers working to make the New South Wales Bar more reflective of the society it serves by lowering the cost of entry.
With a Royal Commission and a precedent-setting criminal cartel jury trial on the resumes of its high-flying founders, this week’s launch of Omnia Chambers has generated understandable buzz among Sydney’s legal elite.
But Omnia is not just the first chambers to launch in just over five years. By ditching old funding models, it is joining a new generation of chambers seeking to lower the financial barriers to the Bar – and in so doing, improving diversity within the top echelons of legal practice.
Founding barrister Sera Mirzabegian SC — one of three setting up Omnia alongside Michael Hodge KC and Kate Morgan SC — is also co-chair of the New South Wales Bar Association’s Diversity and Equality committee alongside Ragni Mathur SC of Maurice Byers Chambers, where office sharing is another way of opening up the Bar.
Jane Buncle, one of the fifteen barristers (eleven women and four men) to join Omnia for its launch, told Capital Brief that Omnia is “seeking to build” on the momentum of initiatives from the NSW Bar and other chambers to “ensure that a vibrant mix of people from different backgrounds and lived experiences join the profession.”
