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To criminal lawyer Lauren Cassimatis, supporting your clients shouldn’t just stop at the courtroom.
Cassimatis founded Melbourne-based Gallant Law in 2019, specialising in “holistic legal services”. “We don't just think about our clients’ court cases, we think about their future,” she tells Azzet.
Once a one-person operation, the firm now has three offices across Victoria, as well as in Brisbane, Sydney, and Launceston.
All legal practice areas saw demand grow in Australia over fiscal year 2024, with demand in Melbourne up 9% year-on-year. Overall industry revenue is expected to reach A$33.6 billion in 2025.
Gallant’s launch
Cassimatis started Gallant Law in her 15th year as a lawyer. At the time, she was in a management role at Victoria Legal Aid, specialising in serious offences on the Indictable Crime team.
“I started to notice the gaps in terms of legal representation and customer service,” says Cassimatis. More could be done to address each client’s unique circumstances, she thought — “not only looking at the case and strategic analysis and courtroom advocacy, but also protecting their greater well-being."
Cassimatis’ role at Victoria Legal Aid also included training other lawyers, which she says helped develop her leadership skills before starting Gallant Law.
While some previous clients followed Cassimatis to her new practice, others found her through social media, including Instagram and LinkedIn. She also hosts the YouTube series Conversations With a Criminal Lawyer, aimed at educating viewers about crime causes and prevention.
“On Instagram particularly, I was taking people through a visual journey of what my day's like — without breaching confidentiality, giving an idea of the emotions you have throughout the day, how tirelessly you work for your clients,” she says. “That really helped with generating a brand and an identity.”
Cassimatis founded Connecting Lawyer Mums in 2018, an organisation offering law mothers personal and professional support. While on maternity leave, she created the group to help other mothers who felt isolated or disconnected from the profession.
This boosted Cassimatis’ professional network, as well as helping others in the field. “It drew people to want to work with me, because we have a really nice reciprocal relationship where we could support each other's careers.”
Justice and injustice
As Gallant Law’s mission involves addressing their clients' long-term futures, Cassimatis aims to raise awareness of social and financial inequalities impacting criminal law.
The number of women in prison in Australia increased by around one third from 2014 to 2024, with women now representing 8% of the adult prison population.
“I think there’s been more of a focus by government to crack down on crime and use punishment and jail as a tool to end the cycle, rather than focusing on rehabilitation and prevention,” says Cassimatis. While some women may need community support to leave abusive situations or end maladaptive behaviours, many are “falling through gaps, because there’s not enough funding or programs out there.”
Seeking legal help can also be financially difficult, as clients can struggle to find the funds for their case. While Legal Aid can provide funds to certain firms, clients might not qualify due to their income, assets, or potential sentence. “What happens is that a lot of clients fall through the gaps again, because they've got to meet a certain financial threshold,” she says.
Following their release, formerly incarcerated people face major barriers to finding employment or accessing Centrelink. “They get out there in the community and their reputation and credit's so tarnished that they can't get a rental property,” Cassimatis says. “They can't take out a loan to get by. They can't take out a business loan to start up a business. They can't get employment, because no prospective employer wants to hire them if they've got a record.”
“If you leave them to sink without any hope, without any finance, without any future, they are going to go back and re-offend.”
Gallant’s greater journey
One major challenge for Gallant Law arrived the year after its founding, with Covid-19 closing courts around Victoria. “You had a lot of clients on remand, waiting to be heard,” says Cassimatis. “Their whole lives had just come to a standstill.”
While Cassimatis joined other lawyers to petition for video court appearances, it was around four years before courts completed the case backlog.
“That was a huge challenge in terms of protecting our clients' interests emotionally,” she says, “and also from a cashflow point of view, wondering how we were going to get by.”
However, video court appearances have largely become a net positive for the profession, per Cassimatis, as they help regional clients and expedite administrative hearings.
The firm’s most important accomplishments include successfully resolving their clients’ high-stakes cases, Cassimatis says. “We've really been able to juggle some very complex cases and get some amazing outcomes for our clients.”
Cassimatis has also seen Connecting Lawyer Mums expand to around 9,000 members.
For the remainder of 2025, Gallant Law hopes to develop its clientele across Australia as it works on interstate cases. “We're really becoming familiar with all the procedures across Australia, getting to know the bench and the other practitioners and the way the courts operate.”
And as always, the firm advocates for its clients. “We take it personally, in a good way. We want to see them win and thrive.”
