Cutting Chai with Lakshmi Ganapathy is a monthly series of bite-sized interviews with prominent South Asians showcasing their career and personality and celebrating their South Asian Australian identity.
This month we feature MANNIE KAUR VERMA, the principal lawyer at Regal Lawyers, a firm providing affordable, intersectional legal support to marginalised communities. Co-founder of the domestic violence charity Veera Brave Girl, she is currently on the board of One Girl, and was named IABCA’s 2025 Business Woman of the Year.
Lakshmi Ganapathy: Your firm places intersectionality at the core of law practice – what does that mean?
Mannie Kaur Verma: We recognise that people don’t experience legal problems in isolation; your gender, culture, migration status, disability, language barriers all intersect, and those intersections shape the outcomes that are available to you, your ability to access the justice system and your ability to then rebuild.
In practice, what that means is that we don’t treat the law as one size that fits all. We would ask different questions, listen more carefully, and tailor the legal advice that’s provided to clients. For example, if we had a victim survivor who was dependent on her spouse for a visa, the advice available to her would look different to someone who might be a citizen here. We wouldn’t really be encouraging her to file for separation or parenting orders or financial resolution – what might be more suitable is how to draw boundaries and other tools to act when the need arises.
Lakshmi Ganapathy: You do a lot of frontline advocacy work for those experiencing family violence – how do you deal with empathy fatigue?
Mannie Kaur Verma: The honest answer is you do feel the weight of this work – I think we need to accept that this work does come at an emotional cost. It’s not about numbing yourself or trying to care less, but how you responsibly deal with those emotions.
I’ve learned over the last decade or so working in this space the key is to set boundaries and be professional about that. Particularly working with survivors of domestic violence, there can be a bit of clinginess, a reliance on you to make decisions for them – the sort of language that we hear often is ‘you know what’s right for me, I trust you completely’. [You have to] draw yourself back and say, ‘well, that’s not my role’.
What’s worked for me is to walk alongside them, to help them use the law as a tool and make sure they’re aware of the options available to them, but ultimately it’s for them to walk down that path. My role is not to step into their shoes and absorb their pain.
That’s also helped me because there have been times when you think ‘surely you’re going to follow this path’ and they choose not to, and then you tend to feel frustration. [I take] a step back and say they’ve got to make the right decision for them, and if they’re not ready to walk that path today, then that’s fine.
Outside of work, having a balanced life certainly helps – you can’t really pour from empty cups…looking after yourself and your mental health isn’t a luxury in this workspace, it’s a must.
Mannie Kaur Verma
Lakshmi Ganapathy: If you were in charge, what reforms or shifts would you enact in Australia’s legal and social systems to better support survivors of violence?
Mannie Kaur Verma: There has been a lot of investment in prevention-based strategies, but I do think ultimately our society is still very focused on crisis response, and there needs to be more funding and resources available for prevention with [an] intersectional understanding [of] what the requirements are for different societies.
If we looked at just legislative reform, a lot of the vulnerable groups that we work with are people on temporary visas…[who] are exploited because of the loopholes within the migration system – how do we fix those?
We’ve done some work with women that are on spouse visas – if they’re facing domestic violence, they can rely on schemes to still obtain residency without having to live within the relationship – there needs to be more reforms similar to that.
We talk about the debts that state and federal [government] have, but I think we need to invest more, particularly in community organisations and not-for-profits that provide legal aid – they’re always under pressure, there’s not enough [funding].
Lakshmi Ganapathy: What’s something that you’re currently listening to/reading/playing/watching?
Mannie Kaur Verma: I keep going back to this one book from Joe Dispenza, Becoming Supernatural – it talks about the power of your subconscious mind. It’s a difficult book to read, but it talks about meditation and I find a lot of the concepts in the book somewhat complement the key ideas of the Sikh religion.
Lakshmi Ganapathy: What’s a word that you like in a South Asian language, and what does it mean?
Mannie Kaur Verma: My word of the year and something that I’m learning to embrace is Chardikala – it’s a Punjabi word mentioned a lot in the Sikh religion. The concept is to live in high spirits, to not numb your emotions, to overcome any problems that come in your life and to always have a positive outlook – no matter what happens, let’s move on, let’s find a way forward.
Lakshmi Ganapathy: And finally: Soan Papdi or Papdi Chaat?
Mannie Kaur Verma: I have a sweet tooth, so always Soan Papdi.
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