Swinburne Law School
At Swinburne Law School, we focus on law and technology and practical skills. We’re committed to producing future-ready lawyers and criminal justice and criminology professionals who have elite problem-solving and persuasive skills.
Did you know?
Launched in February 2015, Swinburne Law School is the newest, most dynamic and forward-thinking law school in Australia and is rated fourth in the country and in the top 150 law schools worldwide (Shanghai Ranking’s Global Ranking of Academic Subjects 2020).
Our students are exposed to world-class research with a focus on the society-shaping areas of law and technology, intellectual property and criminal justice.
Our degrees. Our difference.
We’re the only law school in Victoria where graduates can apply to practise the day they graduate. Our partnership with the Leo Cussen Centre for Law means that students can complete their Graduate Diploma of Legal Practice, and gain extensive practical experience, all while studying their Bachelor of Laws. Plus, we offer our students three professional placements. It’s all part of our commitment to ensuring our students are well equipped to handle whatever tomorrow throws at them.
Our Criminal Justice and Criminology degree is the only course in Victoria where you learn about both the causes of crime (criminology) and how society responds to crime (criminal justice).
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Our law courses and degrees
Be prepared for the rigorous and intellectually challenging legal profession by studying law at Swinburne. Our teachers are experts in commercial law, intellectual property, internet law and privacy law.
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Swinburne Law School Research
Swinburne Law School aims to transform the legal industry and shape lives and communities through research based on innovation, invention and creativity.
Our people
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Amanda Scardamaglia
Dean and Department Chair, Swinburne Law School -
Natania Locke
Department Deputy Chair, Swinburne Law School
Name | Position | Contact |
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Julian Burnside AO QC | Adjunct Professor, Law | jburnside@swinburne.edu.au |
His Honour Peter Gray AM | Adjunct Professor, Law | prgray@swinburne.edu.au |
Professor Dan Hunter | Adjunct Professor, Law | +61 3 9214 4432 dhunter@swinburne.edu.au |
Dr Paul Latimer | Adjunct Professor, Law | +61 3 9214 3806 platimer@swinburne.edu.au |
William Lye OAM SC | Adjunct Professor, Law | wlye@swinburne.edu.au |
His Honour Frank Vincent AO QC | Adjunct Professor, Law | fvincent@swinburne.edu.au |
Our strategy for research and teaching is informed by industry. The Law School has an Advisory Board and each degree or course has a Course Advisory Committee comprising of industry experts to inform curriculum development.
External Law Advisory Committee
Chair
Mitzi Gilligan
Mitzi Gilligan holds a BSc/LLB (Hons) from Monash University, an LLM from the University of Cambridge and an LLM (Intellectual Property) from Monash University. She has been practising as a commercial and regulatory lawyer since 1990, including in the United Kingdom from 1993 to 1997.
She was a partner of Minter Ellison from 2000 until she left in February 2014 to become one of the founding principles of Hive Legal. She served on the Melbourne High School Council from 2009 to 2013 and has been on the board of Justice Connect (formerly PILCH) since 2006 and as chair since December 2010.
External members
Julian Burnside AO QC
The Honourable Julian Burnside OA QC practises principally in commercial litigation, trade practices and administrative law. While maintaining a strong commercial practice, Julian has also developed a distinguished public law practice. His landmark cases include successfully appearing for the plaintiff in Trevorrow v. South Australia which was the first case in which a court recognised membership of the Stolen Generation as a basis for legal compensation.
In recent years Julian has become one of Australia's leading advocates in relation to Australia's treatment of asylum seekers and the protection of human rights. He is also an accomplished author. An early and ongoing user of technology in law, Julian is a founding member of the Victorian Society for Computers and Law.
Rodney DeBoos
Rodney DeBoos is a consultant to Davies Collison Cave Law and Davies Collison Cave Patent and Trade Mark Attorneys, having previously been a partner of the firm for over 20 years. He practises mainly in the area of commercialisation of intellectual property and for a number of years lectured on that topic in the Graduate Diploma in Intellectual Property program at the University of Melbourne.
Terry Healy
Since 2005 as Special Counsel to CSIRO, Terry Healy has managed CSIRO’s highly successful patent litigation and licensing initiative based on an invention relating to wifi made by CSIRO scientists in 1992–3. The litigation, centred mainly in the Eastern District of Texas in the United States, has led to licences and settlement agreements worth more than $450 million.
Before that, Terry was CSIRO’s General Counsel for about two decades, in which role he concentrated mainly on corporate governance and litigation. He is admitted to legal practice in Victoria, New South Wales, the ACT and before the High Court of Australia; he is also a Registered Patent Attorney in Australia.
In his 40-plus-year career with CSIRO, Terry has been involved in a wide variety of legal and policy areas, including through extended secondments to the Parliamentary Office of a Federal Minister for Science, the Independent Inquiry into CSIRO (1978), Shell (Australia), CRA (now Rio Tinto), Freehills and Griffith Hack.
Frank Vincent AO QC
The Honourable Frank Vincent AO QC is a distinguished retired judge of the Victorian Supreme Court and former Chancellor of Victoria University. In his legal career his focus was on criminal law, appearing in approximately 200 murder trials, a record number.
Vincent also worked with several Aboriginal legal aid services, particularly during the years 1975 to 1985 when he spent a substantial part of each year in the Northern Territory working with the Aboriginal community. Vincent was appointed a Judge of the Supreme Court of Victoria in 1985 and had been a Judge of the Court of Appeal for nine years at the time of his retirement in 2009. He was Deputy Chair and then Chair of the Victorian Adult Parole Board, a position he occupied for 17 years.
Vincent has served as a member of the Victorian Law Reform Commission, consultant to the Australian Law Reform Commission and Chairman of the Victorian Criminal Bar Association, and since his retirement has been appointed by successive Attorneys General to conduct a number of inquiries into matters of public importance.
Irene Zeitler
Irene Zeitler holds an LLB (Hons)/BA (Hons) from the University of Melbourne, an LLM from Monash University, and a postgraduate master degree in German Law from Ludwig Maximilians Universität in Germany. She was a partner at Herbert Smith Freehills from 1987 to 2012 where she specialised in intellectual property and technology. Irene is a graduate of Australian Institute of Company Directors and was a member of the Intellectual Property Sub-Committee of the Law Council of Australia from 1990 to 2012.
Mick Sheehy
Mick Sheehy has been a PriceWaterhouseCoopers partner since October 2018, responsible for building and running PwC’s Australian NewLaw practice which is focused on providing strategic consulting, technology and outsourcing solutions to legal departments.
Mick is a recognised international leader in the field of legal innovation and transformation, having won numerous international legal innovation awards and with his work the subject of a case study for Harvard Law School. Mick founded and chaired the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium Australia, an industry body established to share best-practice legal operations and innovation knowledge.
Latest news
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- Student News
- Law
Swinburne law students build crucial tech skills with AGL
Three Swinburne students have worked closely with AGL's legal team to develop a prototype workflow solution for internal legal requests.
Tuesday 15 March 2022 -
- Social Affairs
- Law
Are charities being silenced? Why a new law is alarming activists and could scuttle their election campaigns
Philanthropy expert Krystian Seibert explains how recent changes to electoral laws will impose more regulation on charities and other organisations that engage in the electoral process
Friday 03 December 2021 -
- Law
Australia’s housing laws are changing, but do they go far enough to prevent pet abandonment?
New South Wales has joined Queensland and the ACT in ending blanket bans on pets in apartments, but there is still too much uncertainty across the housing system. Analysis for The Conversation by Emma Power, Western Sydney University and Wendy Stone, Swinburne University of Technology.
Wednesday 15 September 2021 -
- Technology
- Law
- Business
Swinburne Law student develops legal tech solution for Spotify
Third-year student Nicola Jerkovic has partnered with Spotify as part of the Law Without Walls competition to create an innovative tech solution to a real problem facing the company’s legal team.
Friday 27 August 2021 -
- Law
- Politics
The government is clamping down on charities — and it could have a chilling effect on peaceful protest
The Australian government’s new regulations to crack down on “unlawful behaviour” may impact the work of legitimate charities. Analysis for The Conversation by Krystian Seibert, Swinburne University of Technology.
Friday 02 July 2021
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