Dear Members,

As many of you would know, voting for the Law Institute of Victoria elections are now open. Two of our members, Molina Asthana and and Sam Pandya, are seeking election this year.

If you are an LIV member, we encourage you to support diversity in the LIV council and consider voting for our members. A brief introduction to each candidate is below.

Molina Asthana

Our National Executive Committee member Molina Asthana is standing for the LIV Council elections. She is currently serving (since January 2017) on the Council on a casual vacancy and has been working on many of these issues including better services for members by LIV, preventing increased cost of practicing certificates, creating a link between the Australian and Asian legal sectors, better access for Australian lawyers overseas and vice versa, and creating greater diversity in the legal fraternity.

Molina is a practitioner having significant experience in two legal jurisdictions, having practiced in India for 7 years and over 11 years in Australia. She also has both significant private sector and Government law practice experience.

Molina is also the Deputy Chair of the International Law Section of the LIV and the President of the Victorian Chapter of the International Law Association and sits on numerous community and other boards.

Molina was a finalist in the 'Access to Justice Category of the LIV awards in 2016 and am a recipient of various other awards including the Victorian Multicultural Award for Excellence - Service Delivery for Community Services 2014 and the VMC Multicultural Award (as Victorian Convenor of the organisation Asian Australian Alliance) 2016.

Through her charity work with various not-for profits she has been active in lobbying for changes in the law. She would be keen to champion the interests of overseas practitioners, government lawyers, women practitioners and advocate for greater cultural diversity in the profession and cultural training for judges.

Sam Pandya

Sam has been an LIV Councillor for the last 3 years and is seeking re-election for the Council for another 3-year term.

Sam is an AALA member and a lawyer of Indian heritage.  Sam represents a growing segment of the increasingly diverse LIV membership, the legal profession and the community as a whole.

Sam has a strong passion for and commitment to Diversity and Inclusion within the legal profession in Victoria and nationally. He is Chair of the LIV’s Diversity Taskforce and work very closely to support and promote gender, cultural and LGBTI diversity initiatives, associations and from a policy perspective.

Sam has this year been appointed to the Law Council of Australia’s Equal Opportunity Committee and is currently working with the LCA on an initiative to collect ethnic and cultural diversity data on a national level, to build on the work the AALA has undertaken in this space.

Voting is currently open and closes on 8 November 2017.
To vote, please visit the LIV's website at: https://www.liv.asn.au/CouncilElections