You can't do important work and make change... and have everybody like you.
Starting her professional life in the legal profession, Bri worked as a Judge’s Associate then went on to publish the best-selling and widely acclaimed book, Eggshell Skull (2018), exposing the sexism and misogyny built into the Australian legal system. She went on to publish peer-reviewed research about consent law, and was named a Fin Review ‘Woman of Influence’ for her role in getting the matter referred to the Queensland Law Reform Commission. She is now a PhD candidate at the University of Sydney Law School researching the way defamation is chilling public interest journalism.
Bri’s second major work, Who Gets to Be Smart (2021) was an examination of how power and privilege operate throughout Australia’s education system. Her investigations and essays about early childhood education and care, school funding, and university access, have made her a repeat guest around the country at educational institutions, teacher’s conferences, and not-for-profits focusing on intergenerational inequality.
Together with the Women’s Justice Network, Bri founded the “Freadom Inside” initiative. That program saw over $30,000 worth of books bought and donated to women in prison in New South Wales. They are now running a pilot program to fund previously incarcerated women to run book clubs for those still inside.
In 2024 Bri published her debut novel The Work, which was both the Dymocks and Booktopia ‘Book of The Month’, and which she toured nationally for two months. She founded the successful News & Reviews newsletter and publication – one of the most successful in Australia – and is now the Culture Editor-at-Large at ELLE Australia. Bri was a co-curator at the 2024 ‘All About Women Festival’ at the Sydney Opera House, programming six sold-out events and interviewing global superstar historian Mary Beard.
Bri was shortlisted for a Walkley Award for her investigative journalism in The Monthly, won a 2021 UQ Alumni award, and has been listed for and received countless awards for literature.
Talking Points
The Courage to Be Unlikeable: How women need to get free from the ‘nice’ trap
Bri has been targeted by lawyers, politicians, commentators and reviewers who don’t approve of her research or advocacy and don’t like her books. But she’s also been instrumental in profound law reform efforts, been shortlisted for a Walkley Award, is a multi-award-winning and best-selling author, and was named a Financial Review ‘Woman of Influence’. Bri is here to tell you that you can’t do the great positive things if you’re not willing and able to weather some negativity from others. Women in particular find this hard. Often they are criticised more, and in different ways. Imposter syndrome is real. And we’re raised from birth to people-please. So, how can we push back against those pressures, as individuals and collectively?The Courage to Be Unlikeable: How women need to get free from the ‘nice’ trap
“There is no way I could have achieved what I have, or made the changes I have, if I was worried about everyone liking me. If you want to break free of the mould yourself, or if you are challenging the status quo, you are going to ruffle some feathers. I’m here to share with you how to build resilience to unfair criticism while remaining flexible enough to grow and learn.”
Key takeaways:
1. Women cop more and different criticism than men – identifying that unfairness is an important first step to building resilience
2. Learning the difference between constructive and destructive criticism
3. Fighting imposter syndrome and double standards
4. Identifying envy – either feeling it yourself or feeling it directed towards you – and turning into something useful
5. Finding a tribe to ‘share the unlikability load’ with and go further together
This keynote is particularly inspiring. It will leave your attendees feeling riled up and ready to go.
Fighting Unconscious Gender Bias
No organisation can achieve meaningful equality by just publishing a generic policy statement. Outdated assumptions and attitudes about gender can be hard to shift. People often want to emphasise their “good intentions” and can bristle when presented with the actual outcomes of their actions instead. Fighting Unconscious Gender Bias
It wasn’t until the Equal Credit Opportunity Act in 1974 that Australian women were able to apply for credit cards in their own name, regardless of marital status. If you were born around that time then you would have grown up in a world where a woman’s independence was still a radical act, and you’d be around 50 now. That means you might be in some kind of leadership or management position, a little bit senior, and have an entire generation of people at your workplace with very different expectations and understandings around respect, inclusivity, and equality.
Gender equality must progress by bringing everyone on the journey together: from Boomer CEOs, to Gen-X and Millennial team leaders and players, to Zoomer graduates. It’s not good enough to simply presume things will get better over time. Progress is not inevitable without concrete action.
Key takeaways:
• Identifying and eliminating double standards – women are not biologically better at multi-tasking and men are not born with stronger leadership qualities
• The myth of the “trickle-up effect” – more women in early career roles does not automatically mean progress is inevitable
• How presenteeism punishes parents and carers – did your organisation try to “snap back” to office hours post-COVID, and who benefits from that?
• Parental policies framed as talent retention measures rather than “handouts” – case studies from top-tier law firms that other organisations can learn from
• The future is gender-neutral – how and why being stuck in binary thinking about gendered issues actually harms everyone
Drawing on data from the Respect@Work report and case studies from certain industry approaches, this keynote is rigorous and empowering.
It’s in Every School, Every Student: deepfakes, nudes, the internet, and young people
Bri has visited schools across Australia and spoken to thousands of students about relationships and sexuality. What she has seen is a culture permeated by pornography that continues to victim blame, and leadership from both schools and homes that is miles behind the latest technological advancements and media trends. Research tells us that the more we speak plainly and openly to young people about sex and relationships, the safer they are and the later they are likely to begin their own sexual activity. This keynote is a combination of qualitative and quantitative research, and Bri’s first-hand accounts of speaking to young people about the challenges they face.It’s in Every School, Every Student: deepfakes, nudes, the internet, and young people
“Every principle wants to think their school is different. Every parent wants to think their child or teenager is the exception to the rule - that they somehow won’t be targeted or do the targeting. But nobody benefits from the head-in-the-sand approach. Especially not the young people in our care.”
Key takeaways:
1. Simply ‘not talking about it’ makes the problems worse, but the good news is: talking about it is the first step to making things better
2. We can’t give information we don’t have ourselves – adults need sex ed too!
3. The internet isn’t going to ‘go away’ and young people need and deserve media literacy and explicit tools for risk management
This keynote is challenging but absolutely vital and timely.
Are You Climbing a Ladder to Nowhere? Forging a Non-Traditional Career Path
Call her what you want: the multi-hyphenate, the slashie, the renaissance woman… Bri Lee is firing on all cylinders, across several platforms, with a combination of specialist expertise and generalist commentary. Want to break free of traditional corporate ladder thinking? Need to be asked a few pointed questions about what you want your work to do for you? Armed with the latest statistics and a few funny stories about lessons learned the hard way, Bri’s keynote will have you feeling like broader professional horizons are possible for you too.Are You Climbing a Ladder to Nowhere? Forging a Non-Traditional Career Path
“I remember being terrified when I quit my legal career and committed to the freelance life, but I’m now my own boss and every year of my working life I both earn more money, and do less of the work I don’t want to do. I’m not going to sugar-coat the hard work and guts it takes, but I’m here to tell you an alternative career path offers rich rewards to those willing to take the reins.”
Key takeaways:
1. The company doesn’t love you back, but a meaningful vocation might
2. Separate money from meaning until you can afford to bring them together
3. You can’t be everywhere all the time, so choose the platforms that will work to your advantage and intended audience
4. Identify whether or not you could benefit from status-markers like PhDs and fellowships
5. The world you graduated into no longer exists and you’ll need a new ten-year plan every two or three years
This keynote is motivating and exciting, particularly for young and early-to-mid career audiences, entrepreneurial conferences, and any audiences in media, journalism, academia, or communications.
The law wasn’t made for women
In the post-MeToo world a phrase that gets thrown around a lot is that ‘the law is broken’. Bri Lee is here to tell you that the law is working exactly as it was designed to, and that it wasn’t made for women. Following her groundbreaking and award-winning book, Eggshell Skull, Bri has been involved in consent and criminal law reform initiatives, and she now works with the Women’s Justice Network advocating for the rights and interests of incarcerated women. She’s also a PhD candidate at the University of Sydney looking at the limitations of defamation law in Australia. In all these areas, women are being systemically silenced and disempowered. What do we do about it?The law wasn’t made for women
“People who practice law affect the way the law works. Every solicitor, every barrister, every magistrate and every judge, has the power to make our legal system better or worse for women.”
Key takeaways:
1. Working as it was intended: he who writes the laws always benefits most
2. Why are rates of sexual harassment higher in the legal profession than amongst the general public, and who guards the guards?
3. Challenging the legal status quo is urgent and vital work
This keynote is not for the faint of heart. Bri can deliver two versions: one for audiences with legal backgrounds, and one for the general public with no presumed/specialised knowledge.
Workshops
Bri Lee has done – and excelled at – almost every type of writing: her investigative journalism was shortlisted for a Walkley Award, her academic research has been peer reviewed and published, her opinion and analysis work has been published widely, and she’s gathered ten thousand readers to her weekly casual newsletter. That’s not to mention her award-winning books across fiction and non-fiction. Bri has been teaching reading and writing lessons to adults for years, and was also recently a lecturer at the University of Sydney. She is an engaging and approachable teacher for either small groups or large audiences. Workshops
“The thing all these types of writing have in common – when they’re done well – is clarity.”
Workshops are best catered to organisations or groups depending on their needs. Get in touch to find out more about areas Bri can cover such as:
• Public speaking
• Appropriate written communication across differing levels of seniority
• How academics can get their complicated research into ‘plain English’ for the general public
• How to inject personality into your writing while remaining professional
• Basic building blocks for creative writing
• Managing large written projects over time
• Editing skills for your own work
• Editing skills for working with other people
Topics
I knew when Bri Lee agreed to interview the famed classicist Mary Beard on our Concert Hall stage, we were in good hands. She was in immediate command of a large amount of material which she ... keep reading Chip Rolley, Head of Talks and Ideas, Sydney Opera House
Bri was absolutely fantastic… she captivated everyone that was in attendance (both in person and at the 6 satellite sites). Bri was forth-right in her presentation and covered everything that we all wanted to hear. Bri was extremely friendly, personable, and a pleasure to deal with.
Bri was fantastic on Friday, she was such a pleasure to work with and her speech was so powerful; she reflected so many things that are important to us at WLA. Bri was so generous with her time by signing copies of her books and taking photos with participants! There was a huge line at one stage. It was such a joy to work with her.
Bri was amazing, the audience were definitely there to see her. The panel conversation was a real highlight and Bri’s contribution to that panel was so on point. Lots of questions were directed to her and she was very eloquent and genuine. The conversation with Linda Black was really well attended and we reached full capacity. The book signing had a big line! Lots of Bri fans wanting to chat, and I really enjoyed meeting her – she was a festival highlight for sure!
