Our Team

My first role as a lawyer was at Victoria Legal Aid. I worked in this role for almost 10 years. One of my main responsibilities was advising and supporting children and young people that were presenting with an acute mental health condition. I would support them to navigate the mental health system and provide them with legal advice and representation in relation to any other legal issues that they were facing. This included defending criminal charges, qualifying for Centrelink payments, managing debts and fines, addressing family violence, family law and child protection issues, lodging discrimination claims, accessing services, and applying for compensation.

In this role, I also supported many other vulnerable people to navigate our legal system. This included asylum seekers and refugees, migrants, people with disability, survivors of family violence, and victims of crime.

My second role was at the Department of Education. I worked in this role for nearly 7 years. As a Principal Lawyer and Manager, I provided legal advice to the Secretary to the Department, the Minister for Education, the Quality Assessment and Regulation Division, principals and leaders of Victorian government schools, wellbeing staff, and policy and program managers.

In the school context, this role included providing advice and support in relation to various areas of law including duty of care obligations, criminal law and procedure, family law, intervention orders, child protection, mandatory reporting and other reporting obligations, equal opportunity and anti-discrimination, human rights, privacy and information sharing, subpoenas and suppression orders.

In the education and care services context, this role included advising and supporting the regulator, namely the Quality and Assessment Regulation Division, to:

• assess applications for registration of education and care services, and providers of those services
• assess whether people in management and control of an education and care service are fit and proper to provide those services
• conduct compliance visits and inspections
• conduct investigations
• take regulatory action against individuals and providers e.g. issuing compliance notices, entering into enforceable undertakings, suspending and cancelling the registration of approved providers, and issuing prohibition notices.

This role at the Department of Education also included advising and representing the Secretary to the Department during inquiries, investigations and hearings being conducted by external bodies such as the Commission for Children and Young People, the Coroners’ Court of Victoria, the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal, the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission and the Victorian Ombudsman.

My next role was as Legal Counsel at the Commission for Children and Young People. In this role, I provided legal advice and support to the Commissioners regarding all of their functions and powers including:

• monitoring and investigating child protection and youth justice services
• investigating services provided to vulnerable children that have died
• conducting systemic inquiries
• implementing the Child Safe Standards
• administering the Reportable Conduct Scheme.

I have also worked as the Legal Manager at the Victorian Institute of Teaching, the regulator responsible for the registration and regulation of teachers and early childhood teachers in Victoria. In this role, I provided advice and assistance to:

• assess applications for registration
• investigate allegations that a registered teacher has engaged in reportable conduct, misconduct, unsatisfactory performance or incompetence
• investigate and take regulatory action in relation to other suitability issues such as registered teachers who were the subject of criminal charges, findings of guilt, and disciplinary action taken by other regulators
• manage registered teachers with significant impairments that significantly impacted on their ability to teach
• take urgent action to suspend the registration of a teacher on an interim basis if they posed an unacceptable risk of harm to children, and the suspension of their registration was necessary to protect children.

I have also worked at the Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools. Initially, my role was as a Senior Legal Advisor providing legal advice to the principals and leaders of nearly 300 Catholic schools in the archdiocese.  This role was similar to my previous role at the Department of Education.

During a period of significant change and transition, I was also appointed as the Acting General Manager, Reportable Conduct. In this role, I supported the Executive Director of MACS to comply with his legal obligations under the Reportable Conduct Scheme. This role included:

• assessing whether allegations amounted to reportable allegations
• providing advice about risk mitigation
• complying with reporting obligations to the Commission for Children and Young People
• working with external investigators to investigate the allegations
• reviewing and analysing investigation reports
• working with internal and external stakeholders to appropriately respond to the findings of the investigation.

I have also worked as the Principal Lawyer at the Disability Services Commissioner. In this role, I provided legal advice and support to the Commissioner and his employees to:

• assess, conciliate and investigate complaints about disability services
• review and investigate incident reports relating to assaults, injuries, or poor quality of care in the provision of disability services
• investigate the deaths of people with disability who were receiving disability services at the time of their death
• conduct own motion investigations to address recurring or systemic issues in the provision of disability services.

I also spent some time working at the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing helping to prepare for the commencement of the new Social Services Regulator. In this role, I conducted a comprehensive analysis of the new scheme including the requirements and processes for provider registration, the worker and carer exclusion scheme, the Social Service Standards, privacy and information sharing obligations, and the investigation and enforcement powers of the new regulator.