What is your role at Moulis Legal and what was your career progression to get to where you are now?
My Greek father Theofani was very keen on me being a lawyer. He emigrated to Australia as a 14-year-old, first selling Italian coffee machines in Kings Cross and Double Bay, then moving up from being a kitchen hand in milk bars to chef and owner of his own restaurants. In Canberra he had a restaurant empire, at one time four different establishments at once. He has passed now, but remains very well-known. For someone who was an uneducated child goat-herder, brought up in the hills of northern Greece, where he witnessed some of the terrible atrocities that were committed in that part of the world during the Second World War, it was really quite a progression for him. Yet he never lost his humble character.
In his fine-dining restaurants in the 60s and 70s he would see the lawyers having long lunches, enjoying their wine, and spending a lot of money. He thought “well, that looks like a good life”, and he more-than intimated, “that’s what you’re going to do son”. I had pretty good grades in high school so a law degree was achievable. It wasn’t a combined law degree though, and when I got to the end of those four years, I found that I didn’t quite know what the practice of law was all about. I was also playing professional football through my Uni years, good enough to play at the international level before a career-ending injury in 1982, both of which were major distractions! I went into a Commonwealth tribunal as a judge’s associate, and then I worked in the Attorney-General’s Department for a while as well.
After that, I applied for legal jobs in the private sector. Freehills, now Herbert Smith Freehills, employed me in Canberra before most of the other firms I had written to had even responded. I knew they were a top firm, and my onboarding experience really created a strong bond of loyalty. I had an orientation year in Sydney and then I returned to Canberra to work in the fledgling Canberra office. I became a partner of Freehills in 1992. Regrettably, after building up an office of close-on 30 people, all with a great sense of camaraderie, the partnership closed the office. I did my best to comfort and support our employees in their transition into new jobs, then worked in the Sydney office for another three years.
Ultimately, the call of Canberra was too strong and I saw great opportunities for a high level boutique law firm to establish here. So I left Freehills and set up Moulis Legal in 2005. Here I am, still loving what I do and doing it with a lot of interesting young people, partners and clients, and really enjoying it.
Where are you from and what ethnicity do you identify with?
I identify very strongly as a Greek Australian. Culture, I think, is extremely important to your attitudes and your livelihood and the way you interact with people. Greeks are very egalitarian, democratic, and some might say almost anarchic. But, at its roots, it is about discussion, examination of issues, and the emotions you feel with those around you. It’s not about being rich, it is about being happy in your circumstance. It is also about hospitality, which is so important.
And then the Australian side of things? Well, there was always a huge amount of confidence, especially in the 60s and 70s when I was brought up. We could achieve anything. It was a rich country, it was a young country, it was a go-ahead country and an outward looking country. So here I was, with my Greek heritage, in a country which was confident in itself and fascinated with the world.
I think that’s been a huge influence, my Greek-Australian background. It’s fundamental to how I behave and how I interact with people.
What are some of your country’s traditions and customs?
Greek Easter. It is funny because Greek Easter down here is reversed. Easter is a time of rebirth. In Greece, you’re going into springtime, whereas in Australia, it is autumn and going into winter. But no matter, Greek Easter here is every bit as magical as Greek Easter for Greek Orthodox people anywhere else in the world. I don’t go to church regularly, but I do go when I need to slow down and restore contact with the meditative side of my religion.
I do like going to my local Greek Orthodox church at Queanbeyan, to escape and help settle things down in my mind and find my balance. I particularly like the fantasy element of the Greek Orthodox church. You should check it out, there are angels everywhere, St George slaying dragons, last suppers and crucifixions, and flying lions, all beautifully painted, and ancient Greek text describing it all that I eventually decipher but not without great difficulty. Also, I feel that being there allows me to get closer to my past relatives and reflect on family. Sometimes it’s like my father is right next to me, reminding me to stand up straight and not put my hands behind my back, like he did when I was a kid.
Do you believe that culture, traditions and customs impact the business and the legal space and the integration of them?
Very much so. I think that’s what our firm is molded around. We’ve got a real strong ethos when we are working on projects and when we get together as a firm. We think about things. We discuss things. We enjoy the stimulation that comes from ideas and solving problems. We email social, legal and political commentary to each other, without this being part of any “billable matter”. We are critical when we see something that is not right in the legal space, or when it’s not right in a human or social sense. We have attitude. Attitude about social integration, respect and observance of law that tries to protect and “keep things real”, how a society should care for less-advantaged people, and how greed leads to sub-optimal outcomes and inevitable conflict. Those concepts are very important to us as a group, they give us emotional and intellectual energy.
The other thing that my background has brought to this firm, or at least I hope I’ve had something to do with it, is a “basic goodness”, if that’s the right description. I don’t come from a single culture, and I don’t come from a wealthy socio-economic class or a politically powerful class. We are a group of people that represent so many influences from around the world, united by a golden thread of thoughtfulness about our place and our relationships with people and clients. Celebrating those human elements makes this a great place to work, in my humble opinion!
In your role at Moulis Legal and over your legal career, what challenges have you seen in the diversity space and how do you think the legal industry can do better?
The ethnic mates I’ve grown up with – Italians, Greeks, Slavs – had parents that came to Australia in the 40s and 50s when Australia was welcoming immigration for nation-building. There was a real ethos of hard work. Everyone was part of a big team. Yeah, for sure, there was discrimination and prejudice, but there were also strong bonds created by everyone’s contribution to making this country great. Things shifted when we actually become great. A kind of selfishness has emerged. You can see it on the streets every day of the week. So, we are now very much more conflicted in our attitudes as a society. People are feeling threatened by climate change, they are nervous about health scares, they are fearful about technology, they want to resist their loss of privacy but are trapped into cooperating with corruptible information systems. People are fearful and want to preserve what they’ve been comfortable with in the past. Communities are wanting to re-establish their dominant culture.
That feeling is now creating conflict about bringing in unsettled groups from overseas. The hawks at the national level of many countries are in the ascendancy, highly critical of certain countries in the world, of the trade relationships that once created cooperation and understanding. The result is a reluctance to attempt coherence, and immigrants haven’t settled here as happily as they should have. I think we should do better, in terms of our appreciation of the objective of “new Australians” to have a better life, and to encourage their appreciation in return. It’s not working well in either direction at the moment.
How to reactivate international organisations and the important work they do is a real challenge too. I can’t let your question go by without referring to the WTO, an organisation that has contributed a lot to positive cohesion and can do so again if properly enabled.
With your experience, what does diversity and inclusivity in the workplace mean to you?
When I was growing up, I played soccer in the national team, at all levels - school, youth, under-23s, Socceroos. We were in a team with out-and-out Aussies, we called them “Skippies”, after the bush kangaroo on TV that could rescue just about anyone from anywhere. They called us “Wogs”. Everyone was laughing, having fun. We respected each other’s backgrounds through humour and friendship. We emphasised those differences because we liked them and admired them. It was a point of difference that gave us different insights. On top of that, when we travelled the world, playing against other countries, we gained an understanding of what they were all about, an understanding of their character and skills. We had to, to work out how to compete with them on the playing field. That created a huge amount of learning. You can’t assume that the way people think, and how they react, and how they organise, is the same in every country of the world.
Similarly, when you have diversity in the workplace, you are constantly getting a different idea about how something can be interpreted, or what a solution might be, or what somebody’s thinking. After 40 years practicing as a lawyer, you understand that the law is the background, it’s a framework, and that what is important is how you address the behaviours of people within that framework. Having people in an office with multiple different sets of cultural behaviours optimizes our understanding of problems and potential outcomes. If you don’t have that spectrum of understanding and experience, “group think” will deliver you results that don’t identify or leverage difference. Innovation is not achieved by applying the same mindset to every problem.
