Elizabeth Pearce (Mead) (Class of 2000) and her Lockdown Learnings
Posted on May 2, 2025
During the Melbourne lockdowns of 2020, which scuttled her plans to move back to Hobart, Elizabeth Pearce (Mead) (2000) found herself fascinated by the government inquiry into Victoria’s hotel quarantine program. She remembers following the quasi-legal process online and saying: “I think I want to leave the arts and become a lawyer.” So, a year or so into a new role in MONA’s senior management, after 12 years as a writer and researcher on its curatorial team – a “dream job” that had taken her around the world to interview artists, pursue owner David Walsh’s research interests and co-write Monanisms – Elizabeth enrolled in a Juris Doctor at Monash University.
Now in her final months of study and working as a paralegal, Liz plans to practise in the area of Equity Law, the body of law that steps in when the common law can’t achieve justice. “I wasn’t exactly the best-behaved student at Friends’,” says Elizabeth, who lives in Richmond with her architect husband James and their 11-year-old, Jack. “But in hindsight, the School has had a lifelong impact. My teachers not only tolerated difference and dissent, they encouraged it.” She recalls how the broad worldview of Religious Studies classes complemented the non-dogmatic Quaker philosophy. “And in Sociology, the things we learned about social structures and how these permeate a person’s identity were, for me, revolutionary at the time, and still highly relevant today.”
