Toowoomba lawyer Adele Anthony’s rise from abuse to success
From fleeing in the night and pawning everything she owned to dominating her profession with global recognition, this survivor proves it’s never too late to reinvent yourself.
On the cusp of adulthood, multi-award winning Toowoomba lawyer Adele Anthony met her first husband, a man who, she said, tortured her for the better part of a decade.
“When I was 18, I got married to a guy who turned out to be a violent alcoholic,” Ms Anthony said.
“I went on to have three children with him, I was still so young.
“It took me 10 years to break free from him … we had to wait until he left on a night shift; I packed up my three kids and everything that I could fit in my car, and I left.”
Escaping her physical abuse, Ms Anthony said her struggles were not yet over.
“Things got better until I met another partner who I thought was wonderful because he didn’t hit me,” she said.
“I didn’t see that coercion, that emotional abuse which is now recognised as a form of domestic violence, I spent 18 years in that.”
In the face of incredible torment, her dream of a better life never extinguished.
“I was in these situations, but I always knew I had something better in me,” she said.
At 45, she started a university degree in business before applying to law school.
“My partner told me ‘you’re not smart enough’,” she recalled.
“I got such high marks (in business) in that first year that the law school contacted me and asked me, ‘why don’t you do a double degree and come over to the law school?’.”
At 50, Ms Anthony graduated, simultaneously separating from her partner and was forced to start over again.
“I’d finally found my voice, but I sort of had nowhere to go; in both those break ups I lost a lot of property,” she said.
“I had to hock my rings and everything at Cash Converters just to get us through when I left my first husband … I had no home (leaving my second partner).
“That’s why people stay, that’s one of the reasons.
“Yes, there is coercion, there is the power play, there is the fear that they’ll do something, but there is also the thought of ‘what am I going to do?’, ‘how am I going to pay for everything?’ and I had that too.
“I was pretty, pretty lost, but I decided the only way I could go was up, otherwise I would go down.”
Ms Anthony has seen meteoric rise since beginning her firm Adele M Anthony Legal in 2020 with only a laptop and a printer in a makeshift bedroom office.
A few years later, after noticing her clients, mostly middle-aged women starting over, craved career advice, she opened The Queen of Evolution Business Consulting.
In 2025 alone, the multi-business owner won two international awards and two national awards for her work in wills, estates and business succession planning as well as her career coaching enterprise.
In all her work, Ms Anthony said she endeavoured to teach women how to “thrive instead of just survive”, knowing better than most the hopelessness felt by those experiencing domestic violence.
“It’s financial literacy, it’s legal literacy and not enough is being done to help women understand that,” she said.
“A lot of people don’t know that if you leave your (spouse), there is a period of one year before you can apply for divorce; that period of time you are unprotected.
“That’s the time when they actually need a will and a power of attorney because they’re leaving a horrible relationship and they need to protect themselves.”
Ms Anthony stressed how important it was for women to strive outside of their relationship – no matter their age or circumstances.
“Despite what challenges you’ve been through, whether it’s domestic violence or something else … there is still time.
“I’m 61, almost 62, we are not old at our age.
“Everything that you face, you can turn it around, but you’ve got to have the right mindset and that’s what I help my clients achieve.
“Confidence doesn’t come first, it’s doing the actions, it’s starting something, it is being visible, then the confidence comes.
“Women can design their career to suit too; you don’t have to work 100 hours a week for the rest of your life, you can get a good income working around your lifestyle and your responsibilities.”
Ms Anthony encouraged those struggling to reach out for help first and foremost; seeking support from crisis centres, financial backing from banks with newly established domestic violence assistance programs, and legal advice from organisations like her own.
“There are so many resources now available that weren’t (there) when I divorced back in 1991,” she said.
“I always said to myself, in my first marriage and the second, that if I ever got out I would be an advocate for women and I would try and give the support that I didn’t get.
“I can help, there are so many other services that can help. I just want to show that women can evolve and be whoever they want to be.
“There’s a little bit of hard work, you need to have the right mindset, but there are people that will help you.
“No situation is too awful that you can’t get out of it … it’s never the end.”
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Originally published as Toowoomba lawyer Adele Anthony’s rise from abuse to success
