Let us introduce you to our guest of the week, the magnetic and astute, Alex Ladd.

Alex Ladd (pronouns he/him) is a human rights lawyer and advocate based in Brisbane. He graduated from the University of Queensland with a Bachelor of Laws (Honours) and Bachelor of Arts (extended major in International Relations), and in 2020 he completed his Graduate Diploma in Legal Practice from the College of Law. Alex has experience in the disability, LGBTQI+ and elder law spaces, and spent almost three years at the recently concluded Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of Persons with Disability. He currently is a lawyer in the Seniors Legal and Support Service at Caxton Legal Centre – a community legal centre with a four-decade history of supporting Queenslanders to improve their access to justice. Alex proudly identifies as a member of the LGBTQI+ community, and has lived with a vision impairment from birth and is blind in his right eye. Alex was recently fortunate to attend as part of Australia’s Civil Society delegation to the Conference of States Parties to the Convention on the Rights of People with Disability, held at the UN Headquarters in New York City. He is also a one-time Tony Award attendee. Emphasis on that last sentence!

We both truly believe that Alex is destined to do some incredible things in his career and felt inspired by his insights and perspectives as an early career lawyer. His life experiences certainly teaches us a lot of lessons about the art of ‘pushing back’ and the importance of dialogue and communication as an important feature of inclusion. Digressions in this episode include the origin of Alex’s surname, his funny life footnotes like his very brief dream to become a French pastry chef or his expertise as a film critic.