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Public & Administrative Law

Russell Kennedy offers a comprehensive suite of public law services to clients from Local, State and Commonwealth governments. We deliver practical and agile solutions that respond to the unique challenges of this sector.

Our Public Law team has extensive experience in the areas of administrative law, human rights law, information access laws, statutory interpretation and public accountability frameworks. We support our government clients with focused strategic guidance regarding policy development, decision making, governance and compliance, complaint resolution and litigation. Our expertise gives us a strong understanding of the political, social and commercial sensitivities our government clients face.

We help departments and agencies with regulatory responsibilities to execute their powers and work effectively with their constituents. We also provide our clients advice in relation to effective decision making. We understand the environmental pressures upon our government clients and help to navigate them.

We have worked with the Victorian Government since 1994, we are currently on 10 of the 13 areas of the legal panel and act for a range of Departments and agencies across the whole of the government.

A member of the Commonwealth Government Legal Services panel (formerly known as the Legal Services Multi-User List), we have acted for Commonwealth clients across a range of departments and agencies providing a varied range of services to them.

We also work with national law bodies such as the Australia Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) and organisations contracted to provide government services and functions such as medical colleges accredited to train medical specialists.

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Vicarious Liability: The High Court of Australia's decision in Bird v DP (a pseudonym)

13 Nov 2024

The High Court of Australia unanimously allowed an appeal from the decision of the Court of Appeal of the Supreme Court of Victoria, which dismissed an appeal by the Roman Catholic Diocese (Diocese), ...

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Secondary victims in institutional abuse cases – The High Court of Australia rejects bid to avoid paying damages

15 Feb 2024

On Thursday 8 February 2024, the High Court dismissed The Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne’s application for special leave and permitted a father of a choirboy allegedly sexually assaulted by C ...

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Drawing a line in the sand on vicarious liability

21 Aug 2023

It is fair to characterise the principle of vicarious liability as an intricate and dynamic concept. Although common law practitioners have the benefit of a myriad of case law and commentary to under ...

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