Australian Law Librarians' Association

Keynote Speakers and Special Guests

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Saul Eslake

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Program Director - Grattan Institute

Keynote Speaker

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As the ANZ's chief 'number-cruncher' for nearly 14 years, it's been Saul Eslake's job to look at vast reams of economic data, and make sense of it. He has a knack for explaining economics in terms mere mortals can understand, which is why he's always in such high demand as a speaker and commentator.

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Saul Eslake joined the Grattan Institute, a newly established ‘think tank’ affiliated with the University of Melbourne in August 2009. He also undertakes a range of speaking, writing and consulting engagements.

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Prior to joining the Grattan Institute, Saul Eslake was for 14 years Chief Economist of the Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd (ANZ), one of Australia’s ‘big four’ commercial banks, and one with a sizeable presence in Asia. In that role he became one of Australia’s most widely recognized economic analysts and commentators.

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Saul began his career as an economist at the Australian Treasury in Canberra. He subsequently held positions as Chief Economist at McIntosh Securities, a stock broker (now Merill Lynch Australia), and as Chief Economist (International) at National Mutual Funds Management (now Axa Australia).

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Saul has a first class honours degree in Economics from the University of Tasmania, and a Graduate Diploma in Applied Finance and Investment from the Securities Institute of Australia. In 2003 he completed the Senior Executive Program at the Columbia Graduate School of Business in New York.

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He is a Senior Fellow of the the Financial Services Institute of Australia, a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and the Australian representative on the International Conference of Commercial Bank Economists.

Saul Eslake has served a number of governments over the past 15 years. In 1992-93 he was Chief Executive of the Victorian Commission of Audit, which conducted a wide-ranging inquiry into the State of Victoria’s public finances for a then newly-elected State administration. He also served as a director of the Victorian Government-owned natural gas utility, Gascor, and a network of public hospitals in Melbourne’s north-eastern suburbs, in the mid-1990s. From 1995 until 2009 he was a member of the Tourism Forecasting Council, and from 1998 until the end of 2005 he was a non-executive director of the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute.

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He was a member of the previous Australian Government’s Foreign Affairs Council and Trade Policy Advisory Council. He has been appointed by the current Australian Government to its National Housing Supply Council and was a member of its Long-Term Tourism Strategy Steering Committee. He was also one of 1000 Australians participated in Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s ‘2020 Summit’ in April 2008.

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In his home State of Tasmania, Saul is a director of the University of Tasmania Foundation, a director of Hydro Tasmania (Tasmania’s electricity generating company) and Chairman of the Tasmanian Arts Advisory Board (which advises the State government on the distribution of financial assistance to artists, arts organizations and institutions).

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He is also a member of the Advisory Panels for the Economics Schools of the University of Tasmania, Monash University and RMIT University.

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Angela Allen

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Liaison Librarian - University of Queensland

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Angela Allen is currently employed as a Liaison Librarian at the University of Queensland’s Walter Harrison Law Library. Prior to this she has worked within the Libraries of Clayton Utz, Brisbane, Tress Cox Lawyers, Melbourne, Mallesons Stephen Jaques, Melbourne and Phillips Ormonde Fitzpatrick, Melbourne.

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Waleed Aly

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Waleed Aly is a regular co-host of The Conversation Hour on ABC radio in Melbourne, and presents a fortnightly politics and society segment on ABC Melbourne's Drive program. He also appears regularly as a commentator on ABC 2’s News Breakfast program and is a writer and host of SBS's Salam Cafe. He regularly appears elsewhere in broadcast media, including feature appearances on Q&A, Enough Rope with Andrew Denton, Compass, Meet the Press, The 7.30 Report and Lateline.

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He is the author of People Like Us: How arrogance is dividing Islam and the West (Picador, 2007), which has been shortlisted for several awards including the Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards and for Best Newcomer at the 2008 Australian Book Industry Awards.

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Waleed writes regularly for the mainstream press and his work has appeared in The Guardian, The Australian, The Australian Financial Review, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, amongst other publications. He has been commended at both the Walkley Awards and the Quill Awards for his commentary, and was shortlisted for the Alfred Deakin Essay Prize in the 2006 Victorian Premier's Literary Awards. His essay 'It's just a jump to the Left' from The Sydney Morning Herald was included in Melbourne University Press’ collection of Australia's Best Political Writing 2009. Waleed is a lecturer in politics at Monash University, and works within that university's Global Terrorism Research Centre. Previously, he worked as a commercial lawyer, and he also has experience in human rights and family law.

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In 2005, he was made a White Ribbon Day Ambassador for the United Nations’ International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, and was named one of The Bulletin magazine’s ‘Smart 100’ in 2007. He was also an invited participant to the Prime Minister’s 2020 Summit in 2008.

 

Oren Bigos

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Barrister - Lonsdale Chambers

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Oren Bigos is a barrister at Lonsdale Chambers, Melbourne. He practises in a wide range of commercial law matters, including banking and finance, insolvency, corporations, equity and property. Oren is also a reporter for the Federal Court Reports and the Federal Law Reports, a position he has held since 2001. In addition Oren is a lecturer in the Postgraduate Law Program at Monash University where he teaches Corporate Insolvency, and he is the Secretary of the Insolvency Law Section of the Commercial Bar Association.

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Before joining the Bar, Oren worked in the Commercial Litigation department of Freehills, where he gained broad experience in litigation and arbitration. Previously he was a Senior Associate at Mallesons Stephen Jaques, practising in the Banking & Finance group and the Projects Energy & Resources group, where he gained transactional and advisory experience in international banking & finance. He also worked as the Associate to the Hon Justice Finkelstein of the Federal Court.

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Oren won the Supreme Court Prize at Monash University. With the assistance of a Menzies Scholarship Oren completed BCL (Distinction), MPhil and DPhil degrees at Oxford University. His doctoral thesis was on Conflict of Laws.

 

Dr Marie Bismark

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Consultant - Buddle Findlay

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Dr Marie Bismark is dually-trained as a doctor and lawyer. She recently joined the Melbourne School of Population Health as a Senior Research Fellow in Health Law. In addition to her academic appointment, Marie works as a Consultant to Buddle Findlay’s health law team and serves on the Board of Directors of a number of New Zealand health sector organisations, including the Accident Compensation Corporation.

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Marie has previously worked as a doctor in a number of New Zealand hospitals, served as a legal adviser to the Health and Disability Commissioner, and completed a Harkness Fellowship in Healthcare Policy at the Harvard School of Public Health. Marie has published widely on no-fault compensation, patient safety and healthcare complaints resolution.

 

Michael Bryan

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Professor of Law - Melbourne Law School

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Emeritus Professor Michael Bryan was educated at Oxford University and at London University. Michael has taught at Oriel College, Oxford, and Queen Mary College, London University. He is a Professor of Law, acting as Deputy Dean from 1999 to 2003.

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Michael has researched and published extensively in the areas of equity, trusts and restitution. He is co-author (with A. Duggan and F. Hanks) of The Law of Non-Disclosure (Longmans 1995) and an editor of Ford and Lee, The Law of Trusts (Thomson 2003). He also has a longstanding interest in legal history, particularly the history of equity and of law reporting, and until recently was secretary of the Australian branch of the Selden Society.

 

Donna Buckingham

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Associate Professor of Law at the University of Otago

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Donna Buckingham is an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Otago, teaching and writing in statutory interpretation, evidence law and civil procedure.

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She is a Director of the New Zealand Legal Information Institute, the largest free online information site for New Zealand law, conducted in partnership with the AustLII.

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Currently Donna is a Barrister of the High Court of New Zealand, the Chair of the Women’s Consultative Group of the New Zealand Law Society and a Council member of the Otago Branch of the New Zealand Law Society.

She is also President of the Ako Aotearoa Academy of Tertiary Teaching Excellence, the body of national tertiary teaching award winners, providing advice on tertiary education policy and practice across all sectors.

 

Garry Cannon

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Director - Cannon Global

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Garry Cannon has worked for over 20 years in government, legal and public libraries as well as with vendors servicing the information industry. The common theme over those 20+ years has been staff workflows, software systems and the capability required to deliver quality solutions. He has project-managed some of the largest library system implementations in Australia through to special sector libraries with just 1000 items or less in stock where the focus is on ‘e’ everything.

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Throughout Australasia and Asia, Garry has met and worked with a wide variety of professionals seeking to equip their libraries with the most sophisticated products they can access; his experience has led to him developing an information consultancy.

 

Ben Clemson

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Knowledge Consultant - Mallesons Stephen Jaques

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Ben Clemson is a Knowledge Consultant at Mallesons Stephen Jaques, where he is involved in the development of a number of Web 2.0 products in Mallesons' Knowledge Management team. Ben is a former lawyer with a background in IT, and is currently studying a Masters of Information Systems at Melbourne University. Ben also enjoys playing the electric guitar, loud.

 

Jerry Dupont

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Associate Director for Content Development - LLMC

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Jerry Dupont is Associate Director for Content Development at the Law Library Microform Consortium (LLMC), a library cooperative which publish thousands of legal titles in microform and digital-image format. LLMC's work is described on its corporate web site, www.llmc.com. Its on-line service, www.llmc-digital.org, serves virtually all of the major colleges and universities in the U.S. and Canada.

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Dupont holds degrees in Law, Business, Administration, and Library Science, and served earlier as Assistant Director of the University of Michigan Law Library and as founding Director of the University of Hawaii Law Library.

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He is author of the annotated bibliography: The Common Law Abroad: Constitutional & Legal Legacy of the British Empire, which received the Andrews Award of the American Association of Law Libraries in 2002.

 

Mark Engsberg

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Assistant Professor of Law and Director of Library Services - Emory Law

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Before coming to Emory Law, Mark Engsberg worked at the Lillian Goldman Law Library at Yale Law School for eight years, where he served as a reference librarian, as the international and foreign Law reference librarian and as head of reference. Professor Engsberg is active in professional legal and law librarianship organizations. Since 2005, he has served as editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Legal Information, published by the International Association of Law Libraries.

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Engsberg received his Master of Science in Library and Information Science degree, as well as a master's degree and a doctorate in English literature from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He also holds a JD from Willamette University College of Law in Salem, Ore., and a bachelor's degree from Drury University in Springfield, Mo.

Education: BA, 1984, Drury College; JD, 1987, Willamette University College of Law; M.A., 1994, PhD, 1999, MSLIS, 2000, University of Illinois.

 

The Honourable Justice Ray Finkelstein

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Judge, Federal Court of Australia

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Ray Finkelstein graduated in law in 1970 and was admitted to practice in 1971. Between 1971 and 1975 he worked in Melbourne as a solicitor and also as a tutor at Monash University. He was called to the Bar in 1975, specialising in equity, commercial and corporate law. He was appointed Queen’s Counsel in 1986. Thereafter he concentrated on appellate work often acting for State and Federal Governments and their instrumentalities. He was acting Solicitor General for the State of Victoria during 1992. He was appointed a judge of the Federal Court in 1997 and has held additional appointments as Deputy President of the Australian Competition Tribunal and the Copyright Tribunal of Australia. In December 2008 he was appointed part-time President of the Australian Competition Tribunal for a period of 5 years. He is married and has two sons.

 

Richard Gray

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B.A. (Hons) Political Science; LLB

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Richard is the Information Services Team Leader (Science, Engineering and Medicine) at UNSW Library. He currently leads a team that oversees the delivery of efficient and effective information services to staff and students. Prior to this, Richard was the Outreach Librarian to the Faculty of Law and multi-disciplinary research centres at UNSW for almost 3 years. Richard has worked in public and academic libraries, as well as a law firm and local government, for over 13 years. He is in his penultimate year of a Masters of Information Management at QUT.

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Richard has been a Committee Member of the ALLA (NSW) Committee since late 2009. Richard also finds time to be the Editor of DVDBits.com, a film review website.

 

Graham Greenleaf

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Professor of Law - University of New South Wales, Sydney

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Graham Greenleaf is a Professor of Law at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, where he specialises in the relationships between information technology and law. He has taught at UNSW since 1983, and been a Professor there since 1998. In 2009-10 he is an International Scholar at Kyung-Hee University Law School, Seoul, Korea. He teaches and researches in the areas of cyberspace law, privacy, computerisation of law and intellectual property. He has degrees in Arts and Law, and is a Fellow of the Australian Computer Society. Current areas of research focus are Asian data protection and privacy laws, public rights in copyright, and the globalization of free Internet access to legal information.

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He is a co-founder and Co-Director of the Australasian Legal Information Institute (AustLII), and of AustLII’s international projects, WorldLII, CommonLII and AsianLII. Since 2005 he has been awarded twenty three competitive research or infrastructure development grants with colleagues. He received the 2007 Dieter Meurer Prize for Legal Informatics at the University of Saarbrucken.

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He is also the founder and Co-Director of the Cyberspace Law and Policy Centre at UNSW. Since the mid-1970s he has been involved in privacy issues, and is currently Asia-Pacific Editor for Privacy Laws & Business International and involved in two consultancy projects on privacy for the European Commission. He co-edited Global Privacy Protection (Edward Elgar, 2008).

 

Judge Bill Hastings, BA Tor, JD Osgoode Hall, LLM Lond

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Bill Hastings is a District Court Judge and Chair of the Immigration and Protection Tribunal. He was Chief Censor of New Zealand from 1999 to 2010. Before that, he was Deputy President of the Film and Literature Board of Review, and a member of the Indecent Publications Tribunal and the Video Recordings Authority. Judge Hastings has been a Senior Lecturer and Deputy Dean of Law at Victoria University of Wellington where, as an adjunct lecturer, he continues to teach an LLM course in Censorship and the Freedom of Expression.

 

Prue Innes

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Media Consultant and Member - Australian Press Council

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Prue is a media consultant and member of the Australian Press Council. She supervised the 2008 Report of the Review of Supression Orders and the Media Access to Court Documents for Australia's Right to Know Coalition. She was formerly Media Officer with the Supreme Court of Victoria and a journalist with the Age newspaper.

 

Alison Jones

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Library and Information Manager - Meyer Vandenberg

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Alison joined the Canberra law firm, Meyer Vandenberg in 2007 as the firm’s inaugural library and information manager. Developing the firm’s library service continues to be a unique professional experience. Opportunities in the position have included creating customised tools to run the library and knowledge management service, along with collaborating in new ways with staff across the firm to ensure the library and knowledge management service meets their needs.

Prior to joining Meyer Vandenberg, Alison was a reference librarian with the Defence Library Service, where she gained extensive experience within the Defence Legal Library. Since 2008, she has been a member of the editorial board of Australian Law Librarian and was the recipient of ALLA’s Lynn Pollack Memorial Scholarship in 2008.

 

Robert McEntyre

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Director - Robert McEntyre & Associates

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Robert McEntyre established in February 1992 a Sydney based business and management consulting practice -Robert McEntyre & Associates Pty Limited (www.mcentyre.com.au).

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Robert works with clients in the private, government and not-for-profit sectors on strategic and business planning, organisations reviews, business improvement and change management, and information research projects. He is an experienced workshop and group facilitator. Since 1998, Robert has undertaken a range of projects with the Australian and New Zealand Library & Information Services sector.

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Prior to establishing the consulting practice, Robert worked for:

• IBM Australia in Services Marketing, HR Management, Employee Development and Business Process Improvement consulting.

• Siromath, a CSIRO Australia company, as a Senior Consultant involved with business consulting and software marketing.

• The University of Sydney Australia as a Teaching Fellow in the Faculty of Agriculture.

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Robert is a member of several business and professional Associations and has been a Board Member of a US based Certification Services organisation and an Australian Professional Association.

 

Kirsty McPhee

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Library and Professional Development Manager - Tottle Partners

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Kirsty McPhee is the Library and Professional Development Manager for Tottle Partners, responsible for library and knowledge services, as well as coordinating professional development across the firm. Kirsty has worked in libraries since 2006, starting in law libraries in 2007 with Deacons. Kirsty is a member of the ALLA(WA) committee, and in 2008 organised the Satellite Events for ALLA: The Art of Information.

 

David Noble

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Chief Parliamentary Counsel and Compiler of Statutes for New Zealand

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David’s early career in academic law in the law faculties of University College, London and the University of Warwick led to him qualifying at the Bar and practising from chambers in the Temple, specialising in environmental, local government and public law litigation and advice. He then worked for a central London local authority and a leading firm of London solicitors. After joining the Government Legal Service in 1987 David held senior roles responsible for legal advice, legislative drafting and litigation in the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, the Food Standards Agency as its first Chief Legal Adviser, the Treasury Solicitor’s Department as a Director, the Home Office as Deputy Chief Legal Adviser, the Department for Education and Skills as Chief Legal Adviser, and the Attorney General’s Office.

David also worked for the European Commission for 5 years, undertaking policy development, legislative drafting and law enforcement of the environmental acquis of the European Union.

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He has been Chief Parliamentary Counsel and Compiler of Statutes for New Zealand, based in Wellington, since late 2007 and is a member of the Legislation Advisory and the Legislation Design Committees for New Zealand.

Selected Publications: Articles with Professor Jeffrey Jowell in Urban Law and Policy; and the Journal of Planning and Environmental Law

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Contributions to: Le Droit communautaire de l’Environnement; Problèmes de mise en oeuvre nationale AEDR - Luxembourg & Environmental Liability in the EU Academy of European Law - Trier, Germany

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Chapters in: Michael Adler & Stewart Asquith: Discretion and Welfare (Studies in social policy and welfare) - Heinemann & Han Somsen: Protecting the European Environment: Enforcing EC Environmental Law - Blackstone

 

Sara Roberts

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Reference Librarian - University of Canterbury, Christchurch

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Sara is a reference librarian in the Law Library at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch New Zealand. She currently works closely with students and academics providing legal research assistance and teaches legal research skills at all levels. Sara has worked in public, academic and special libraries for the last 16 years in roles with a strong focus on teaching information literacy. Before settling back in New Zealand in 2006, Sara worked for London law firm SJ Berwin managing the implementation of their in-house knowhow database.

 

Karen Scott

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Senior Lecturer in Law, University of Canterbury, Christchurch

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Karen Scott is a Senior Lecturer in Law at the University of Canterbury. She was formally a lecturer at the University of Nottingham in the UK. Her principal research interests focus on the Law of the Sea, International Environmental Law and the Polar Regions. Karen has published widely in various international law journals, and recent publications include: “Non-compliance Procedures and the Resolution of Disputes under International Environmental Agreements” in International Law and Dispute Settlement: New Problems and Techniques (French Saul and White (eds)) (Hart: 2010) 225 – 270; “Maritime Security in the Southern Ocean” in Maritime Security: International Law Perspectives from Australia and New Zealand (Klein, Mossop and Rothwell (eds)) (Routledge 2009) 117 – 137; “Defending the World Below the Brine: Managing Alien Invasive Species under the 2004 Ballast Water Convention - A New Zealand Perspective” (2008) International Journal of Maritime Law 307 – 330; and “Regulating Subglacial Aquatic Research Under the Antarctic Treaty System” (2008) 23(1) New Zealand Universities Law Review 134 – 154. Karen is the co-convenor of a project entitled Antarctic Security in the Twenty-First Century: Legal and Policy Perspectives with Professor Donald Rothwell (Australia National University) and Dr. Alan Hemmings (Gateway Antarctica, University of Canterbury). She is the Editor of the New Zealand Yearbook of International Law and is on the editorial board of the Journal of Water Law.

 

Matthias Liffers

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Emerging Technologies Specialist, Murdoch University

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Matthias Liffers has always had a thing for technology. He used his first computer (an Amiga 1000) when he was five, was online (with a 2400 baud modem) at the age of eight and had his first mobile phone (a Motorola Flare) at 18 – in 1999.

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After studying computer science, German and library studies, Matthias went on to work in a variety of roles including Librarian, Web Analyst and German-English Translator.

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He ended up landing a sweet gig at Murdoch University doing what he loves best – discovering and learning about emerging technologies. He spends his days looking at funny pictures of cats on the Internet and thinking up ways to help teaching, learning and research activities at the University.

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When he isn’t working, Matthias enjoys cycling, putting together IKEA furniture and trying to avoid developing an expensive photography obsession.

 

Peter Gregory

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Lecturer Journalism

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Peter Gregory was given a traditional introduction to court reporting in the early 1980s. Thrown into the job when a colleague left the Brisbane Telegraph, an afternoon daily newspaper, he began covering the Queensland legal system with little experience or training.

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He has spoken at national and state legal conferences, and has lectured at a number of universities in Victoria and Queensland. A graduate from the University of Queensland in 1980, Gregory returned to study in 1998, and completed a Master of Journalism externally at the same institution in 2002. Gregory has begun work on a PhD, which will examine suppression orders in Victoria and South Australia.

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He is a member of a Red Cross international human rights law committee, the web-based mentoring body New Australia Media, and another state committee dealing with media and communications. He has served for a number of years on the Media and Entertainment Alliance ethics committee for journalists, and previously was part of a courts/media liaison committee at the Victorian Supreme Court.

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During his journalistic career, Gregory was regarded as a mentor for young reporters. He co-ordinated their training as court reporters while working at The News, in Adelaide, from 1985 to 1988. He was also an informal tutor, with other senior journalists, at the Victorian Supreme Court press room for almost 20 years.

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He is the author of Court Reporting in Australia, a text book aimed at giving students and young journalists a guide to the craft.

 

Liz O'Donnell

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A/g Branch Head

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Liz is an executive member of the team that brings you Australian Government legislation in print and online at www.comlaw.gov.au. Her branch of ~50 staff publish over 10,000 new and amended laws each year to ComLaw, working closely with 70+ author agencies. The ComLaw website is currently attracting up to 40,000 visitors a day and undergoing a major redevelopment.