Perpetua Kish
Director, Co-Founder and Chair
Principal Lawyer & Director- Balance Family Law
Director- Pacifica Congress
Pepe is a founding member and the current Chair of The Kind Lawyers.
She is the multi-award winning Director, Principal Lawyer and Co Founder of Balance Family Law. She is trained in conflict management coaching, advanced collaborative law and Human Services. She is also a qualified financial mediator and parenting co-ordinator. She began her career as an Associate in the ACT Children’s Court while still an undergraduate and progressed to the ACT’s Statutory Child Protection Agency (CYPS) upon admission to practice. She switched to private practice in 2010 after taking a hiatus from law land to work in case management for CYPS, and to spend some time on the stage and screen. Acting was her first passion!
Pepe is also an avid volunteer. In 2022, she was appointed as a Director of Pacifica Congress, a not-for-profit organisation that brings together family law professionals from the Pacific region who are working together to ensure that children and their families are better equipped to overcome the harm caused by family conflict. She is also an active member of the ACT Law Society’s Alternative Dispute Resolution Committee, and is on the Australasian taskforce of the International Association of Collaborative Professionals (IACP). She also lends her time as a Judge for the Lawyers Weekly 30 Under 30 and Partner of the Year Awards, and is the Co-Chair of Connecting Lawyer Mums, an organisation that seeks to provide networking and community connections to parents practicing law. Her favourite role however, is as a regular volunteer at her “happy place”, Little Oak Sanctuary, a refuge for animals who have come from abuse, neglect or abandonment, or who have nowhere else to turn.
Pepe believes the key to practicing law with kindness is to embrace an abundance mindset, engage in daily reflective practice and always foster collaboration over competition.
When she isn’t consumed by lawyer life, she loves spending time with her family, escaping to warmer climates with them, as often as possible, and hanging out with her three naughty cats (and yes, sometimes the cats come on the holidays).
