This is Allens

The role of luck was a defining theme in the way I was raised. The understanding that we are almost entirely the product of our circumstances is a notion that predates my conscious memory. My mother always made it very clear to me how lucky I was. Lucky to live in a safe, secure home, lucky to go to a good school, lucky enough to be able to reach my potential. I was also taught that luck extends beyond economic and family circumstances to personal qualities. It's not merit that makes you smart, it's the way the cards fall. You're lucky to be academically able, you're lucky to be hard-working. These are not necessarily qualities you can cultivate.

There's a prevailing narrative in Australia that if you have strong values and you work hard then you can get ahead, but I don't think it's as simple as that. It would be great to live in a society that tries to level the playing field; to make it possible for everyone to achieve their full potential, regardless of the hand they've been dealt.

Achieving social justice and equity has been the anchor point of my life. When I became a lawyer, I entered what is essentially a guild – only lawyers can practise law. The way I see this, the privilege of membership comes with an obligation to increase access to legal representation, even for those who can't pay for it. Having the chance to be part of the pro bono practice at our firm enables us to contribute to this and, at the same time, be part of significant aspects of Australian society. Our pro bono practice does important work like representing people facing eviction from public housing, assisting asylum seekers, helping Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations to achieve their goals.

When you're animated by social justice – as so many of this generation of young people are – pro bono work lets you align your personal values with the way you earn your living. For me, the fact that I can make a living fulfilling my passion is kind of magical.

My reading Random Family by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc – this book is the product of the writer's nine-year immersion in a poor neighbourhood in the Bronx. She doesn't just empathise with the characters; she knows them and understand their lives – the complexity, the chaos, the love and the conflict. To read this is to understand something of a completely different world and to question so many assumptions we make.

The Lost by Daniel Mendelsohn – this epic tale of one man's search for relatives lost during the Holocaust reads almost like poetry - a Homeresque tale of the mystery and suspense involved in a decade-long quest to answer a simple question – what happened to the people in the photo? By scaling the loss of six million down to one group of six family members, Mendelsohn captures the horror that huge statistics can obscure.

When will there be Good News by Kate Atkinson – this is part of the Jackson Brodie series by English writer Atkinson. These books are light-hearted, well-constructed, layered mysteries with a highly likeable PI who stumbles into crime scenes and resolves them all with charm and good, honest common sense.

My listening I am devoted to two Slate podcasts. First, the Political Gabfest, a weekly discussion of American politics with three super clever and knowledgeable presenters. Listening to this makes you feel smart. Secondly, the Culture Gabfest, same format but a discussion of three cultural products a week (a movie, a tv show, an album, an essay). This one makes you feel cultured or sometimes, woefully ignorant but it's always fun.

My watching I loved The Bureau – a nail-biting, eyes-covering French spy show with a great cast and script which is, to my totally uninformed view, realistic as far as spy shows go. Don't be deterred by the subtitles or the five season run; it's worth it.