I am chief executive of Maurice Blackburn Lawyers, Australia’s #1 plaintiff law firm. From our founding in 1919 extending access to justice has been the guiding force behind our success. Every day, we make the lives of our clients – working Australians who have suffered an injury or loss - more secure and more dignified through our legal services.A shockingly high proportion of Australians think the legal system is only for the wealthy; that it is too slow, expensive and complicated for ordinary folk like them. The mission of Maurice Blackburn is to use our size, technical expertise and deferred fee models to open up the justice system to people of every means.I started my career as a lawyer at Maurice Blackburn in medical negligence. After stints as a political adviser and parliamentary researcher I returned to Maurice Blackburn and its pioneering class actions team. Class actions are a form of collection action. Just as trade unions bring workers together to force employers to offer fair pay and conditions, class actions brings claimants together to force companies and organisations to offer fair compensation for harms they have caused.Before I became CEO I worked on four shareholder class actions which each achieved settlements in excess of $100 million for shareholders, led the team that achieved Australia’s largest food safety class action settlement, and established our Australian commercial litigation funding business Claims Funding Australia.As the principal lawyer overseeing our social justice practice I also had the opportunity to contribute to important victories for the rights of some of the most vulnerable in our society, including acting for 109 babies of asylum seekers which resulted in the babies and their families being given visas and released from detention.My 1100 colleagues and I are the custodians of a 101 year-old legacy of fighting for a fairer legal system and a fairer Australia. We are committed to using this privilege to lay the foundations for a second century of Maurice Blackburn.