Launceston lawyer Yvette Cehtel is admired for her razor sharp mind and dogged pursuit of equality.
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As chief executive of the Women's Legal Service Tasmania she is continuing to work towards gender equality and is committed to making WLST a statewide service spending her time across the three offices in Launceston, Burnie and Hobart.
"Inequality affects all women," Ms Cehtel says.
"We are paid less, retire with less, financially don't recover from separation and one in three of us are directly affected by family violence.
"All of us have a responsibility to change the culture that permits this inequality to flourish.
"We must not continue to normalise and accept gender bias. All of us have a responsibility to challenge this by calling it out and supporting others when we see it happening."
Ms Cehtel grew up at Kings Meadows and was the first in her family to finish year 12 and qualify for university.
Her father was a motor mechanic who arrived in Australia from Slovenia in 1957 and met her mother, a nurse at the Campbell Town hospital.
Although money was tight, the Cehtels encouraged education and Yvette was allowed as many books as she wanted, with George Orwell's Animal Farm making an impact on the youngster.
She was teased for being different at high school but found acceptance at sport.
Her struggle with high school maths "taught me to never give up and to be persistent".
"Reading and studying Animal Farm was also a turning point as it drew together my observations that we were not all treated the same way," Ms Cehtel said.
"My strong sense of social justice and of thinking of others was also cultivated through my regular attendance at church. This outward thinking and focus on the big picture has been a feature throughout my life."
There was active discussion at home as to whether she should go into teaching or nursing where scholarships were available but she was interested in studying psychology and law.
"At university the statistical component of psychology was unattractive so I set my sights on entry into straight law," she said.
Her first job was completing stocktake at Petrarch's bookshop in Launceston and she later worked at Myer and "cleaned a house in Sandy Bay to get by" while living with her sister and brother-in-law and studying at university in Hobart.
"Money was tight and again I felt like an outsider where I didn't know many people and didn't live in a residential college as the cost ruled it out.
"It took me a while to get my first professional job, I was on Newstart allowance for six months which was a real low point for me."
She moved back home to Launceston and finally got a break with the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre.
After the job interview Aboriginal lawyer and activist and now chair of the Aboriginal Land Council Michael Mansell was speechless.
"A group of us listened as Yvette explained why she would like to work for Aborigines as a lawyer," Mr Mansell recalls.
"None of us said anything.
"We were all so impressed: we had found a passionate and sincere person who had the skills we needed and whose humour fitted right into the Aboriginal community.
"I meant it when I told the Court on her admission as a barrister: 'It gives me great pleasure to move the court to admit Ms Cehtel to the Bar".
Ms Cehtel said she learnt, and continues to learn, so much from the Aboriginal community in Tasmania.
"For me this connection to their community continues today - it is such a privilege to be invited into their community," she explains.
"I understood it was a culturally safe place for the community and embraced their holistic service provision and focus on systems reform - the resilience of the community to pursue change for the greater good of the community has stayed with me.
"It was so inspiring.
"Much of what the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre was doing in the late 1990's is only now becoming best practice in the mainstream legal profession with the move towards health justice partnerships.
"I learnt about this 23 years ago from the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre who were ahead of the evidence base that this is the most effective way to work with people facing disadvantage and structural barriers."
Ms Cehtel has devoted her professional life to providing legal help in both paid and voluntary roles and her experience has shown her "not everyone could access the law".
She worked in private practice but her passions lay in making change.
She worked for former trail-blazing Attorney-General Judy Jackson on the Significant Relationships Act, the Family Violence Act and consent law reform.
"Working with Judy to investigate and develop what at the time was world firsts was adrenaline fuelling.
"We were at the cutting edge of law and policy and it was exhilarating.
"It led me to New Zealand to explore international and treaty law with the Crown Law office in Wellington.
"I experienced a new way of valuing and accepting difference in that jurisdiction. It left me feeling we are yet to have conversations in Australia that New Zealand started in 1840.
"We have a lot of work to do here in Australia to recognise and reflect on the experience of our first people and our role in the position their community finds themselves in today."
Ms Jackson shares Mr Mansell's admiration for her former staffer.
"Yvette is one of those rare people who has a sharp intellect coupled with integrity and personal drive," Ms Jackson said.
'The legislature we worked on was, and still is, in all jurisdictions in Australia and many overseas countries, leading edge.
"To achieve what we did took a team effort and Yvette's skills working with stakeholders and the public service were invaluable."
Ms Jackson can think of no one better equipped to take on the challenges of the WLST.
Ms Cehtel is deeply affected by the discrimination cases she has worked on which have highlighted "injustice and unfairness".
"To come forward and make a complaint was a barrier in itself. People needed support and, in my experience, had normalised, that is come to accept, racism and being treated differently," she said.
"Collecting stories from the stolen generation prior to the Wilson inquiry in Tasmania was also gut wrenching - hearing the stories of children being ripped from their mothers arms or being told to run into the scrub to avoid welfare.
"I also learnt from (Aboriginal) elders who focused on how we could learn from the past and make the system better for young people in their community.
"That was inspiring. The resilience of the Tasmanian Aboriginal community inspires me and gives me energy."
While ongoing funding is always a challenge Ms Cehtel is determined that the women's legal service she has headed since April will continue to lead debate on gender inequality.
"I work collaboratively with other community services to offer holistic services to women in our community who experience barriers to accessing justice," she said.