Meet Meredith Edel winner of the 2021 J.G. Crawford Prize f outstanding thesis RegNet alumna Dr Meredith Edelman believes in justice. She started early with volunteer programs, and has continued to work with and for organisations serving victims of domestic violence, after-school programs for children of lower-income families, but most frequently those providing legal services to migrants and low-income people. Meredith studied law at the University of Southern California, where she met RegNet’s now-director, Kate Henne, while playing rugby. In her academic life, Meredith found herself interested in bankruptcy and insolvency law. Having studied religion as an undergraduate, she was intrigued by the United States’ (US) bankruptcy systems’ grounding in religious and normative ideas about forgiveness. Insolvency systems are crucial to functioning economies, but Meredith saw a system designed to give a ‘fresh start’ to ‘honest but unfortunate debtors’, and thought of the links between debt, sin, and the power of forgiveness. After law school, Meredith went to work for a corporate law firm, planning to learn the practice from some of the world’s best lawyers while paying off her school debt. After five years at two of the worlds’ largest law firms, she was ready for the next chapter. She wanted to weave together the insights she gained as a corporate structuring lawyer with a sharp analysis of how legal and social orders
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ANU COLLEGE OF ASIA AND THE PACIFIC
do not work for poor communities in the ways they do for her rich and more powerful clients. While applying to PhD programs in the US and overseas, Meredith turned to her friend Kate, who suggested that she read some of Distinguished Professor John Braithwaite’s work. Meredith started with Crime, Shame, and Reintegration, and her interests were sparked. Things took a turn when she learned of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse being appointed in Australia and ideas of a project started to percolate. After applying to programs, she was thrilled to be accepted to ANU to work with Professor Braithwaite on her project, which turned into her thesis, “Judging the Church: Legal Systems and Accountability for Clerical Sexual Abuse of Children”. As a newcomer to social sciences, Meredith’s PhD journey had its challenges. She had to learn new approaches to research, writing, and even new paradigms of thought. However, through all her struggles, Professor Braithwaite remained a constant source of support, advice and wisdom. “The balance between challenging a student to engage with new ideas, providing constructive feedback, and allowing the student space to grow with a project is difficult to strike, but John was really great in this respect,” Meredith reflected.
