Terri Janke

Terri Janke is an Indigenous woman with Wuthathi/Meriam heritage. She graduated from UNSW in 1995 with a BA LLB. She is the Solicitor Director of Terri Janke and Company, a unique Australian law firm specialising in Indigenous intellectual property and business law. Terri is an international authority on Indigenous Cultural Intellectual Property (ICIP) and has written the leading protocols and ICIP models in the film, arts, museum and archival sector. In 2019, Terri completed a PhD thesis at the Australian National University. Terri has received numerous awards including the 2011 NAIDOC person of the year and the 2019 NSW Women Lawyers Community Lawyer of the Year.

I am grateful for the experience of studying law at UNSW. The Indigenous Law Program is the best of its kind and has been successful in graduating many leading Indigenous lawyers. We were taught by leading law lecturers who encouraged us to think, discuss and apply the law in the quest for social justice. I took these skills into my career, blending the legal skills with my Indigenous experience. It helped me develop as an international authority of Indigenous cultural and intellectual property. This gave me the courage to set up my own firm. We have acted for Indigenous organisations, government and corporate clients. Over the past 20 years, the firm has grown, and I have been able to employ several Indigenous graduates from UNSW. It’s been empowering to use my legal career to affect social change.