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Meet our Law team

Students studying outdoors at the Gold Coast campus

A group of leading scholars drive our agenda for cutting-edge legal critique, teaching and public debate.

Executive team Course coordinators Academics Practice professionals Adjunct staff Law Advisory Committee (LAC)

Executive team

Clinical Professor David Heilpern

Chair of Discipline (Law)

David Heilpern was a Magistrate and judicial trainer from 1998 to 2020. Prior to this appointment, David was a litigation lawyer on the North Coast where he co-founded the law school at SCU in 1992, David graduated with a Masters in Law from SCU and was the Alumni of the Decade in 2005. In August 2022 was appointed as a Dean and Chair of Discipline (Law) at SCU. David is passionate about legal education, seeking to ensure that students are stimulated, excited and fulfilled.

Course coordinators

Dr John Orr

Course Coordinator

BHumanMvSt(UQ), LLB(Hons)(SCU), PhD(QUT) Master of Laws (Business Law), Master of Business Law, Graduate Certificate in Business Law, Bachelor of Laws & Double Degrees in Law, Bachelor of Legal and Justice Studies, & Associate Degree in Law (Paralegal Studies), Senior Lecturer

Dr Rohan Price

HDR Convenor and Honours Coordinator, Lecturer

BA, LLB (UTAS), LLM (UTAS), DPhil (UNE)

Academics

Ms Emma Babbage

Casual Academic (Teaching)

BArts(SCU), BEd(SCU), LLB(Hons)(SCU)

Ms Julia Cook

Casual Academic (Teaching)

BA(Hons)(Murdoch), LLB(Hons)(Melb)

Dr Georgina Dimopoulos

Senior Lecturer

Dr Georgina Dimopoulos is an Australian lawyer and a socio-legal researcher with expertise in legal and policy evaluation, and doctrinal, qualitative and empirical research, across the areas of family law, children's rights, privacy and family violence. Her book, Decisional Privacy and the Rights of the Child (Routledge, 2022), presents a new model for enabling and listening to children’s voices in decision-making processes.

Mr Warwick Fisher

Lecturer (Teaching Scholar)

BEd(JCU), BLegS(Macq)

Dr Jonathan Harlen

Lecturer

BA (VUW), LLB(Hons) (SCU)

Ms Yvette Holt

Lecturer

BA(Hons)(Syd), LLB(Hons)(Syd), LLM(Hons)(Camb)

Mr Lance Jones

Casual Academic (Teaching), Adjunct Fellow

AssocDipSocial Work(UniSA), BA(UNE), LLB(UNE), GradCert(OutdoorEd)(UniSA), LLM(LP)(ANU)

Associate Professor Jennifer Nielsen

Associate Professor

BSc(Monash), LLB(Hons)(Monash), PhD(Melb)

Dr Meri Oakwood

Sessional Lecturer and Unit Assessor

BSc(Hons)(Macq), LLB(Hons)(SCU), PhD(ANU)

Mr Aidan Ricketts

Lecturer

LLB(Hons)(UQ), LLM(QUT), MEd(JCU)

Dr Tom Round

Lecturer

BA(Hons)(Qld), LLB(Qld), PhD(Griff)

Associate Professor Mandy Shircore

Associate Professor

Prior to joining SCU in 2022, Mandy held positions as the Director of Pro Bono Centre (UQ), academic and Head of Law (JCU) and has worked as a lawyer in the private and public sector. Mandy has worked with the community legal sector as solicitor, clinical legal educator and management committee member. Her research interests include torts law, health law and legal education. Mandy was named as an inspirational academic by the Women Lawyers Association of Queensland in 2019, 2020, 2021.

Ms Emma Somerville

Casual Academic (Teaching)

BA(Jurisprudence)(Adelaide), LLB(Adelaide), GradDipLegPrac(UniSA)

Dr Brendan Walker-Munro

Senior Lecturer

Prior to joining SCU today, Brendan was a Senior Research Fellow with UQ’s Law & the Future of War research group. He has published 30 articles in the UNSW Law Journal, Federal Law Review (both ‘top 4’), Adelaide Law Review, Cambridge Law Review, and in specialist journals such as Military Law and Law of War Review, Critical Criminology, and Torts Law Journal. In 2022 he appeared on SBS’ Insight special on identity crime, and gave a TEDxUQ talk on digital privacy law last year.

Ms Helen Walsh

Lecturer (Teaching Scholar)

AssocDipBus(UNE), LLB(SCU), LLM(QUT)

Associate Professor Mark Wellard

Associate Professor

Mark is a leading insolvency, corporate and commercial law academic, having previously practised as a lawyer in Australia, the UK and as Legal Director of ARITA, Australia's peak professional association for insolvency practitioners. Mark is a member of The Law Council of Australia's Insolvency & Restructuring Committee. Mark's professional experience and engagement inform both his teaching and research. Mark is passionate about readying law students for the demands of legal practice.

Practice professors

The Practice Professorial Program in the Law Discipline at Southern Cross University fosters professional engagement and builds linkages between the Faculty and professional practice.

It does so by inviting accomplished and respected current or former legal practitioners to take up pro bono adjunct professorial roles and to work with the Faculty on relevant activities.

The program is a unique opportunity for the profession to influence the academic life of the Faculty, while also enabling staff and students to engage with leading local, national and international practitioners.