Larissa Behrendt has had an extraordinary career – as a legal academic, author and filmmaker – that has allowed her to move between courtrooms and Country to explore what real justice means, and what it might yet become.
In this groundbreaking work that is part philosophical meditation and part historical reckoning, Behrendt weaves together personal reflection, Indigenous knowledge and decades of legal experience to illuminate a deeper truth about Australia: that more than one way of understanding law, justice and responsibility has always existed.
With quiet authority, Behrendt considers how First Nations’ Practices of Sovereignty – grounded in self-determination, reciprocity and collective care – have succeeded within communities.
Clear‑eyed, thoughtful and ultimately hopeful, Finding Justice is a profound invitation to rethink power and policy, expand our understanding of justice and achieve genuine transformation.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are respectfully cautioned that this website contains images of people who have passed away.
Larissa Behrendt on 'Finding Justice'
Larissa Behrendt
Larissa Behrendt is the author of three novels: Home, which won the 2002 David Unaipon Award and the regional Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book; Legacy, which won the 2010 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Indigenous Writing; and After Story, which won the 2022 Voss Literary Prize. She has published numerous books on Indigenous legal issues; her most recent non-fiction book is Finding Eliza: Power and Colonial Storytelling. She was awarded the 2009 NAIDOC Person of the Year award and 2011 NSW Australian of the Year. Larissa wrote and directed the feature films, After the Apology and Innocence Betrayed, and has written and produced several short films. In 2018 she won the Australian Directors’ Guild Award for Best Direction in a Documentary Feature and in 2020 the AACTA for Best Direction in Non-fiction Television. She is a Distinguished Professor at the Jumbunna Institute at the University of Technology Sydney.
