Her Excellency Professor Marie R Bashir AC CVO

Professor Marie Bashir is a medical graduate of the University of Sydney and a Fellow of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists.

Professor Bashir’s career highlights include establishing the Rivendell Child, Adolescent and Family Service; being appointed Director of Community Health Services and Clinical Director of Mental Health Services for the Central Sydney Area; an appointment as Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Sydney; and establishing the Aboriginal Mental Health Unit in partnership with the Aboriginal Medical Service, Redfern. In 2001 she was appointed Governor of New South Wales; and in 2007 was elected the 17^th Chancellor of the University of Sydney.

Among her many awards, Professor Bashir has been appointed an Officer and a Companion in the Order of Australia; and was invested by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II as a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order.

David Crocker: Barrister, Torrens Chambers (SA)

David Crocker is a commercial and civil law barrister based in Adelaide. He is on the Executive Committee of the South Australian Bar Association and the Editorial Committee of the Law Society of SA’s monthly Bulletin magazine, which is appropriate given his former life as a newspaper reporter and sub-editor for The Advertiser, in Adelaide, and The Times, in London.

Before becoming a journalist, David had hoped to study veterinary science; a dream that has now passed him by. Animals will have to now rely on his legal skills for any assistance; in particular to have jumps racing banned in SA. 

Dr. Maike Dorn: BSc BVMS (Hons) LLB (Hons)

Dr Maike Dorn graduated with a Bachelor of Science and a Bachelor of Veterinary Medicine and Surgery with Honours from Murdoch University in 2004. After working as a mixed practice veterinarian in country QLD for several years, Dorn pursued her passion for animal welfare law and completed a Bachelor of Law (Hons) at the University of Western Australia in 2009. Dorn decided to combine her veterinary skills with law with the aim of improving the welfare and legal protection of animals in Australia.

Dorn’s involvement with animal law began with her role as a veterinary witness in animal cruelty prosecutions. She completed her law honours thesis by examining the lack of animal welfare protection afforded to invasive animals in Australia. An extract of this thesis won the NSW Young Lawyers Animal Law Essay competition in 2009. 

Dorn is currently completing an articled clerkship at the State Solicitors Office of WA and on weekends she works as a Veterinarian. 

Joana Fuller: Barrister, Bar Chambers (SA)

Joana Fuller was admitted to practice in 1994 and signed the bar roll in 1997. She specialises in criminal law, and has a strong passion for animal law. Fuller has been vegetarian since she was 11 years old, and after a few years of practising as a criminal Barrister, she contacted Animal Liberation to offer pro bono counsel work.

Fuller has represented Animal Liberation in the Supreme Court, as well as former Animal Liberation spokesperson Ralph Hahnheuser personally in a number of cases, including one arising from the contamination of sheep feed in protest against the live sheep trade, for which he was acquitted. Fuller is the Chair of the Law Society of South Australia's newly-formed Animal Law Committee. 

Tracy-Lynne Geysen: Principal of TLG Lawyers – Family and Animal Law.  Original founding member of BLEATS (QLD)

Tracy-Lynne Geysen is a founding member of BLEATS (Brisbane Lawyers Advocating and Educating for Tougher Sentences), a group set up in October 2007 and currently consisting of some 150 lawyers including three senior counsel (and about 80 support people) prosecuting matters on a pro-bono basis for the RSPCA.

In addition to family law Geysen practices in animal law and her firm is the first law firm practising in this area in Australia.

Anthony Karsteadt: Barrister, Francis Burt Chambers (WA)

Anthony Karstaedt is a barrister at the Western Australian Bar.  He practises in the areas of civil litigation and criminal law in both the original and the appellate jurisdictions.  Before joining the WA Bar he was a university law lecturer, an overseas barrister, a senior lawyer with the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions, and a solicitor. He has a special interest in animal law and animal rights.

Graeme McEwen: Chair, Barristers Animal Welfare Panel

Graeme McEwen has been a member of the Victorian Bar for over 25 years, specialising in commercial law. He was part of the small team of counsel for Laurie Levy in the milestone ‘free speech’ case of Levy v State of Victoria (HCA).

McEwen’s experience in animal law is extensive. He is currently Chair of the Barristers Animal Welfare Panel, a national body of over 120 Australian Barristers, and is the former President of Animals Australia (1983-94). He is the inaugural lecturer in Animal Law as an undergraduate course at Melbourne University Law School, and is vegetarian.

Graeme Page SC, Patron of BLEATS (QLD)

Graeme Page was admitted as a solicitor in Queensland and Victoria in 1968 following an earlier admission in New Zealand in 1967.  He practised as a solicitor in Brisbane until 1975 when he was admitted to the Bar in Queensland.   He took silk in November 1994.

Mr Page has specialised in family law since coming to the Bar in Queensland.  He has served a term as President of the Family Law Practitioners Association of Queensland, as Chairman of the Family Law Committee of the Bar Association and as an executive member of the Family Law Section of the Law Council of Australia.  He has been a member of the Domestic Violence Committee in Queensland and of the Family Law Accreditation Committee of the Law Society of Queensland.  He is presently a lecturer at the Bar Practice Centre in Queensland. He has been a contributing editor to both Butterworths Family Law Service and the CCH Family Law Service.

Whilst the principal emphasis of his practice is on property disputes in family law, Mr Page has been involved as counsel in appeals relating to the Hague Convention and to child support.  He acts regularly, but not frequently, as counsel for the representatives of children in parenting matters and continues to support litigants in receipt of legal aid. Mr Page is a qualified family law mediator and arbitrator. He is also currently patron of BLEATS (Brisbane Lawyers Advocating and Educating for Tougher Sentences) (in Queensland).

Dr Melissa Perry QC:Barrister, Sixth Floor Selborne/Wentworth Chambers (NSW)

Dr Melissa Perry QC has practised at the bar since 1992 and specialises in international, constitutional and administrative law, native title (on which she co-authored a major textbook) and federal environmental law.  Her prize-winning doctorate was in international law on boundary disputes from the University of Cambridge.  She has a strong interest in pressing for reform of animal protection law, particularly with respect to intensive factory farming practices. 

She is a member of the Voiceless Council, PALS@PILCH (the pro-bono animal legal service), and has been assisting in establishing a national Barristers Animal Welfare Panel.  Among other positions, she is a member of the Administrative Review Council, a director and foundation fellow of the Australian Academy of Law, and on the Editorial Board for the forthcoming journal, Climate Law, to be published with IOS Press, Amsterdam.  Current projects include co-authoring Australian Climate Law in Global Context to be published in 2011 with Cambridge University Press.

Katrina Sharman, Corporate Counsel for Voiceless

Katrina Sharman is the Corporate Counsel for Voiceless, the animal protection institute. Prior to assuming that role in 2004, she worked as a Senior Associate at Minter Ellison Lawyers.

Sharman is a former Chair of NSW Young Lawyers Animal Rights Committee and a former member of the Animal Research Review Panel (NSW) and the National Health & Medical Research Council, Animal Welfare Committee. Sharman has spoken about animal law issues at numerous conferences including the ‘Future of Animal Law Conference’ (Harvard Law School, 2007). Sharman has also contributed to numerous publications including 'Animal Law in Australasia' (The Federation Press, 2009) and ‘Animal Law in Australia and New Zealand’ (Thomson Reuters, 2010).  

In 2009, Sharman was included in Australasian Legal Business Magazine's showcase of top 20 in-house Lawyers. She has also previously been shortlisted as Australian Corporate Lawyers Association In-house Lawyer Young Achiever of the Year.

Ian Weldon: Barrister, Sir Clifford Grant Chambers (WA)

Ian Weldon has been a barrister in general practice in Western Australia since 1988, and was called to the Bar in England and Wales in 1977. He was the President of the Law Society of Western Australia in 2004 and is the author of the LexisNexis text, Criminal Law Western Australia.

Weldon is experienced in the field of animal law, having advised Animals Australia on numerous issues, including providing the initial advice on prosecution of the Al Kuwait live export case; and was an inaugural contributor to the Animal Protection Law Journal.

Steven White: Lecturer, Griffith Law School; consultant, TLG Lawyers (QLD)

Steven White is a lecturer at Griffith Law School, Brisbane. He has published widely on animal law, and teaches an undergraduate course in animal law. He is also a consultant to TLG Lawyers, the first law firm in Australia to specialise in animal law.

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