SPEAKERS

Clare Asquith Finegan is an experienced Outreach and Reference Librarian with Courthouse Libraries BC, Canada, where she has spent eight years supporting public, self-represented litigants, and the legal community in accessing and navigating legal information. This publicly accessible law library is a rare resource in Canada and internationally. Clare’s background is diverse, spanning the arts, archives, community startups and more, but a constant in her career has been her dedication to reducing barriers to information access. She has provided comprehensive training on legal and legislative research to lawyers, students, public librarians, and Indigenous legal clinics, helping to build research skills across these various user groups.

Dr. Olivia Barr is an Associate Professor at Melbourne Law School where she is the Director of the research programme ‘Geography, place and the possibilities of law’ at the Institute for International Law and the Humanities. She has previously worked as a public lawyer in the role of government solicitor, in law reform and for the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, and studied at UWA, UBC (Canada) and Melbourne. Olivia researches in the interdisciplinary field of law and humanities, with expertise on the many relationships between law, place and sovereignties. With a long-standing interest in law reform, her research applies theoretical insights to more practical public law settings, including investigating future possibilities for state recognition of First Nations’ sovereignty, sovereignties, and self-government. In 2026, she designed and taught a new JD elective at Melbourne Law School called ‘Law Reform’.

Dr Amanda Head is a Senior Lecturer at Macquarie Law School, Macquarie University, where she serves as Course Director of the LLB program. She convenes several of the law school's largest units, including Foundations of Law, Legal Ethics, Torts, and Remedies, with enrolments in any one unit exceeding 1,000 students and she is the recipient of multiple Vice-Chancellor's and Faculty teaching awards for excellence and innovation in education. Amanda is admitted as a lawyer to the Supreme Court of NSW and is also a Certified Practicing Accountant. Her teaching and scholarly interests centre on legal education pedagogy, assessment design, and the integration of AI and large language models into legal education and professional formation. She is developing a suite of learning and assessment tools that embed genuine engagement with the learning process, while remaining flexible in how students engage. Amanda has presented on AI and Legal Education to members of the Legal Profession Admission Board and other professional audiences. She sits on Macquarie University's Academic Senate Education Committee and the Law School Advisory Board.

Alison Jones is Librarian (Systems) at the Attorney-General’s Department Library, based in Canberra. Her role focuses on ensuring library systems support departmental work, while also contributing to reference services and the daily work of a law library as part of a library team. Prior to her current role, Alison was Research Librarian with the software company Atlassian, where she designed and curated a digital library for the research team. She previously worked as Knowledge Manager at Geoscape, a locational data company, where she established the organisation’s intranet. Earlier in her career, Alison was the inaugural Library Manager and Knowledge Manager at Canberra law firm Meyer Vandenberg, building and delivering a comprehensive legal library service. In 2015, she was the recipient of the Australian Law Librarians’ Association Law Librarian of the Year.

Miriam N Mochales is Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of Regnet.Ai, a global regulatory intelligence platform tracking legislation across more than 130 jurisdictions. She works at the intersection of law, artificial intelligence, and regulatory systems, leading the development of data infrastructure and AI-enabled tools that support how law is researched, interpreted, and applied in practice. With a background in law and cultural research, Miriam brings an interdisciplinary perspective to how technology is reshaping legal systems in real time. Her work focuses on how emerging technologies are not only reshaping, but disrupts the production, interpretation, and accessibility of law, alongside the risks they introduce around bias, accountability, and trust. She has led the design of large-scale legislative data pipelines and AI-assisted regulatory insights, with a strong emphasis on accuracy, transparency, and human oversight. Miriam is particularly interested in the limits of AI in law, especially how legal meaning can (and cannot) be translated into computational systems, and what we risk losing when the law is forced to fit into machine logic.

Renée Naylor is a qualified librarian and trainer with over 15 years’ experience in academic and law libraries. Her current role is Education and Communications Coordinator at Law Library Victoria, where she leads the design and delivery of the Library’s education program for lawyers, legal professionals, and court staff. Renée has expertise in legal research, instructional design, and professional training. She has led the development of the Law Library’s resources on artificial intelligence and digital literacy to assist legal practitioners in adapting to emerging technologies. She also coordinates the Library’s regional outreach program, which includes training, strategic communications, and statewide visits to support lawyers in person.

The Honourable Chief Justice Richard Niall was appointed as the 13th Chief Justice of Victoria from 3 February 2025 following a long and distinguished career. His Honour commenced practice in 1990. He was Associate to the Hon Justice Ryan of the Federal Court before signing the Bar Roll in 1995. His Honour was appointed silk in 2010. He was then appointed as Solicitor-General for Victoria in 2015. In 2017 his Honour was appointed as a judge of appeal of the Supreme Court of Victoria. The Chief Justice also serves as the Chair of the Courts Council, which is the governing body of Court Services Victoria. Courts Services Victoria is the independent statutory body providing services and facilities to Victoria’s courts, VCAT and other Victorian statutory entities. The Chief Justice is also the chair of the Judicial College of Victoria and the Judicial Commission of Victoria. The Chief Justice is a Senior Fellow at the University of Melbourne, teaching public law and separation of powers in the graduate program. His Honour is a Fellow of Monash University and the Australian Academy of Law, and a member of the Australian Judicial Officers Association; the Australian Association of Constitutional Law; and the Australasian Institute of Judicial Administration.

Laura Racky is a Melbourne-based commercial lawyer, entrepreneur, and strategic advisor with nearly two decades of practice spanning commercial litigation, banking, finance, and insolvency. She is the founder and principal of commercial law firm llgold and serves as Chairman of the Board of Big Group Hug, a Melbourne not-for-profit supporting families in crisis. Laura holds degrees in Law and Arts and a Masters in Commercial Law from Monash University. She is a Graduate Member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (GAICD) and a Fellow of the Governance Institute of Australia (FGIA). Her engagement with AI and law reform is grounded in practice. Running a commercial law firm has put her at the coalface of how AI tools are actually being adopted by clients, by practitioners, and across the legal system, and what that means for regulation, accountability, and access to justice. Laura also reaches a substantial public audience as a content creator and commentator, with over 140,000 followers across Instagram and TikTok and more than 30 million views. She has been published in the Australian Financial Review and hosts the Let's Just Start Podcast.

Elizabeth Tydd took up the position of Australian Information Commissioner in August 2024 for a 5-year term. Elizabeth is an experienced agency head and has occupied a number of statutory decision making roles, including Information Commissioner and CEO of the NSW Information and Privacy Commission, Australian Freedom of Information Commissioner, Deputy President of the Workers Compensation Commission and Deputy Chairperson of the former Consumer, Trader and Tenancy Tribunal. Elizabeth has extensive regulatory and governance experience at an executive and board level in a range of jurisdictions and industries, including commercial, not-for-profit and public sector oversight. She holds a Bachelor of Laws and Master of Laws from the University of Technology Sydney, as well as postgraduate certificates in executive management and governance together with post graduate qualifications in leadership and policy from Harvard University. Elizabeth possesses expertise in digital government and has written extensively on this subject.