Greetings, and welcome to my academic profile page.

Until the end of 2021, I am a Research Professor of Law and Public Policy. In 2022 I will resume my continuing role as Chair of Law and Public Policy (a role I held from April 2014-June 2019).

I've been an academic since 1992, a lawyer since 1993 and both since 1994, except for a 20-month stint as Executive Associate to the Chief Justice of Australia, Chief Justice Gerard Brennan, from November 1996 to May 1998.

I love teaching. I have have won five teaching awards, including a University Teaching Award from the University of Technology, Sydney, in 2003. I was the President of the Australian Law Teachers Association in 2015-6 and, during the course of my career, at some point or another, have taught almost every core subject in the LLB/JD, and into a number of core and elective subjects in criminology. Before I was the Head of the Law School I was Deputy Dean of Curriculum and Students and Associate Dean (Learning and Teaching) at the Bond University Law School. I am very interested in the future of legal education.

I have research interests in access to justice, disability studies, public law, and risk management in a variety of contexts.

I have a strong interest in human rights, and was shortlisted for an Australian Human Right Award in 2010 for my pro bono work with people with disability, Indigenous people, and prisoners. I have been actively involved in a number of communications from Australians to the United Nations Human Rights Committee. I am a member of the Advisory Council of Remedy Australia. Remedy Australia is a human rights organisation which believes Australia should comply with UN decisions on human rights complaints, both past and future.

I was Head of La Trobe Law School for just over five years, until mid-2019. During this period the School achieved an ERA of 4 ("above world class" in research) for the first time in its history. The Juris Doctor and Bachelor of Criminology degrees were developed and introduced under my leadership.

My legal practice and research has been fairly diverse, spanning administrative law, constitutional law, human rights law, industrial law, media law and risk management in a number of different contexts. I have appeared as counsel in the High Court in a number of cases, and also in the Supreme Courts of New South Wales, the Northern Territory, Queensland and Victoria. I was recently appointed to the Queensland Parliament’s Human Rights Advisory Panel.

Recently I have:
• been working on a radio series about significant High Court decisions for ABC Radio National. The series will be broadcast in 2020. A link to the series is here:

https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/the-history-listen/section-71/12206738

• co-written a history of disability services in New South Wales with historian Matthew Richardson.
• joined the boards of the MJD Foundation, Sports Medicine Australia and the Community Broadcasting Foundation.
• completed a collaborative research project exploring the ethics of using social media to conduct research and recruit research participants (including a publication in PLOS-One).
• been working with the Australia Indonesia Disability Research and Advocacy Network on a number of projects, including a training program for young disability advocates.

I am a member of the Australian Fitness Industry Standards Council and a member of the Board of Sports Medicine Australia. These appointments followed on from my work leading the Australian Fitness Industry Risk Management Project, an ARC Linkage Project (2011-2014).