Eggshell Skull Bri Lee by Bri Lee 9781760295776, 1760295779 instant download after payment.

A well-established legal doctrine that a defendant must 'take their victim as they find them'.  If a single punch kills someone because of their thin skull, that victim's weakness cannot mitigate the seriousness of the crime. 

"Scorching, self-scouring: a young woman finds her steel and learns to wield it."  -  Helen Garner 

But what if it also works the other way? What if a defendant on trial for sexual crimes has to accept his 'victim' as she comes: a strong, determined accuser who knows the legal system, who will not back down until justice is done?  Bri Lee began her first day of work at the Queensland District Court as a bright-eyed judge's associate. Two years later she was back as the complainant in her own case. This is the story of Bri's journey through the Australian legal system; first as the daughter of a policeman, then as a law student, and finally as a judge's associate in both metropolitan and regional Queensland - where justice can look very different, especially for women.  Eggshell Skull is a fiercely intelligent, heartbreakingly honest memoir and haunting appraisal of modern Australia from a new and essential voice, in the tradition of Fight Like A Girl.

"Brutal, brave and utterly compelling . . . I can't remember a book I devoured with such intensity, nor one that moved me so profoundly."  -   Rebecca Starford, co-founder of Kill Your Darlings 

"Lee is clear-eyed and sometimes scathing about a system where “a wreck of a car is evidence, but the wrecked body of a woman isn’t”. At the same time, her respect for legal processes turns this into a complicated memoir of the law as it is lived."  -   The Saturday Paper