CQU Law alumnus Izzie receives accolade from Women Lawyers of Queensland
By Greg Chapman
A natural curiosity about the law while she was working as a property manager led Izzie Forsyth to CQUniversity’s Law degree, and recognition from the Women Lawyers Association of Queensland (WLAQ).
Izzie was recently named the recipient of the Una Prentice Award as the highest achieving female graduate from CQU in 2023, an accolade that she has well and truly earned.
Izzie is due to return to work as a solicitor with Shine Lawyers in Maroochydore next year, after recently having her first child.
“Receiving the Una Prentice Award is a huge acknowledgement of the many, many hours of study and hard work I put into achieving my GPA and the grades that I did,” she said.
“I remember reading about this award in my first or second year of the degree and thought what an honour it would be to achieve it but thought it was well out of my reach. I was pretty average in school, and made sure I just took each term at a time during my degree.”
Her journey began while working as a property manager, which included interactions with the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal (QCAT).
“I spent quite a bit of time in QCAT, which shares a building with the Magistrates Court in Maroochydore, and I would find myself waiting to go into my hearing and watching the solicitors go in and out of court wishing that was me. I loved advocating in QCAT and decided to make the change to law,” she said.
After enrolling in CQU’s Bachelor of Laws Izzie resigned from her property management role and took up temporary work in a large supermarket, packing online shopping orders before securing work at the local community legal service about six months after starting her degree.
This then led to a summer clerkship at Shine in 2022 and then a Paralegal role which she undertook three days a week while she finished her degree.
Ultimately, she was then offered a full-time position in Shine’s graduate program after her final exam until finally she was officially admitted as a solicitor.
“Overall, I loved studying the Bachelor of Laws degree. There is no beating around the bush, it is a difficult degree, particularly because of the Priestley 11 requirements which cover such a broad range of subjects, however, I loved the range of elective subjects available and the flexibility to take more or less subjects per term without being required to commit to a full time or part time schedule each year,” she said.
“I liked having this option to speed up or slow down as life happened. The degree has helped with the foundational skills required for a solicitor role such as problem solving and developing logical and critical thinking and I believe the teaching methods employed by the CQU lecturers are what really assisted in me developing these.
“The law degree at CQU is accessible, flexible, and inclusive. The lecturers are engaged and passionate and want you to do well. The ability to do it as quickly or as slowly as you like is very attractive when compared to traditional law courses.”
Shine Lawyers Head of QLD Personal Injury, Peter Gibson said: “This is an incredible achievement and fitting reward for Izzie’s tireless work ethic.”
“We’re ecstatic for Izzie. To see her acknowledged with this award is an immense source of pride for all of us," he said.
“She has already proven herself to be an outstanding practitioner who truly embodies the values at Shine and we’re very much looking forward to seeing the heights she’ll reach as her career progresses.”
