2022 NSW Bar Association recipient of The Katrina Dawson Award

On behalf of The NSW Bar Association, we are delighted to announce that the 2022 recipient of the Katrina Dawson Award is Imogen Hogan.

Imogen graduated from the University of Technology Sydney in 2014 with a Bachelor of Laws/Bachelor of Arts (Public Communication). While still in university she attended the International Criminal Law Summer School at the Leiden University and was a finalist (defence) in the Grotius Centre International Criminal Law Moot.

Imogen’s achievements are not confined to the classroom or the courtroom. She has gained experience with the International Volunteers for Peace in Brittany, France (2008) and as a development project volunteer for the International Student Volunteers in Costa Rica (2010). While at university, she volunteered at the St Canice Homeless Shelter in Kings Cross (2009–10) and the Redfern Legal Centre (2012–13). Imogen was also a member of the NSW Law Society’s Young Lawyers Human Rights Committee working on a subcommittee that was tasked with assisting the Youth Legal Centre in Yangon, Myanmar. They received the Law Society’s Best Community Project Award in 2013. She was also an Indigenous Peer Tutor in Criminal Law and took part in the Beyond University International Leadership Development Program and the Justice Brennan Program.

While completing her Master of Law from the University of NSW in 2016, Imogen worked as a researcher to Peter Hamill SC, who was then at Forbes Chambers. She then served as his associate for two years in the Supreme Court of NSW.

Imogen has an abiding interest in access to justice and working for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged members of society. Since 2016, she has served as a solicitor with the Aboriginal Legal Service NSW/ACT offices in Redfern, Newcastle and Dubbo, where she became the Western Region Trial Advocate. Most recently, she moved to Lismore to be the Northern Region Trial Advocate and is currently instructed to appear before coronial inquiries into the deaths of two young Aboriginal men during Police operations.

Imogen was the first in her family to receive a university education and her achievements are all the more remarkable for having dealt simultaneously with great adversity and ill-health within her family circle. She hopes to continue Katrina Dawson’s legacy ”by encouraging young women to not be intimidated by a career at the Bar, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds”.