Areas of expertise

Overview

Catherine has over 17 years’ experience as a lawyer, mediator and decision maker.

Catherine specialises in administrative law, and in particular advising clients in relation to obtaining approvals under the resource management statutory regime for land and water based activities.   She also regularly advises clients in the area of discrimination law.

Catherine has extensive experience in both informal and formal dispute resolution processes. She has appeared as counsel in various courts and Tribunals and as a decision maker in the Federal Court, Federal Circuit Court and Administrative Appeals Tribunal.

Experience

Catherine was an accredited mediator for the Federal Court, Federal Circuit Court and Administrative Appeals Tribunal undertaking mediations, conciliations and case conferences across a broad range of administrative and commercial matters and training and accrediting mediators through the Court’s accreditation program.

Catherine’s experience includes:

• appearing in the Resource Management and Planning Appeals Tribunal and Tasmanian Planning Commission for developers and Councils in planning appeals;
• Federal Court and Supreme Court administrative law proceedings involving the aquaculture industry regulation pursuant to both the State and Federal environmental regimes;
• advising government and major infrastructure clients in relation to major infrastructure projects;
• appearing in the Federal Court and Full Court of the Federal Court in an employment contract dispute;
• proceedings in the Anti-Discrimination Tribunal for a large scale and mixed use development in Hobart for a building developer in relation to a discrimination complaint about access for people with disability;
• acting in prosecutions and providing advice in relation to resource based statutory offences including under the Plant Quarantine Act, Marine Farming Planning Act, Land Use Planning and Approvals Act and the Environmental Management and Pollution Control Act;
• appearing as counsel in the Federal Court, Full Court of the Federal Court and Supreme Courts in contractual disputes and in the Victorian Supreme Court and Victorian County Court in relation to statutory liability and lease disputes;
• disputes involving land rights, including right of ways, dam easements, and physical encroachments involving nuisance and (land based) trespass; and
• the exercise of delegated judicial power as a decision maker and presiding judicial officer in the Federal Court’s insolvency practice area in corporations, bankruptcy, public examination and liquidator applications.