Anne Cregan

Partner
Sydney

Biography

Anne is a partner in our Pro Bono group.

She has extensive experience in assisting people who are economically disadvantaged or marginalised and the organisations working with them across a range of areas of law.

Anne has acted in public interest and test case litigation in relation to judicial independence, discrimination, the capacity of people with cognitive impairment and/or mental illness to participate in proceedings affecting them and youth justice issues.

Anne has particular interest and expertise in:

  • working with First Nations communities to build governance structures that support self-determination; and

  • the law as it affects people with cognitive impairment and/or mental illness. 

Anne has been an active contributor to the development of pro bono practice in Australia, from the establishment of pro bono practice within commercial firms, to expanding the skills of commercial lawyers to enable them to meet the needs of pro bono clients, to bringing the expertise of firms to bear on the causes of disadvantage.

Prior to joining G+T Anne was global pro bono partner at a major law firm. She has spent her career in social justice, first as a lawyer with the Legal Aid Commission of NSW and in pro bono since 1999.

Anne is on the management committee of Kingsford Legal Centre at the University of NSW, the Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law, the Board of ARACY and is a founding member of Justice Reinvestment Inc.

Experience

Anne’s experience includes advising:

  • Ngan Aak-Kunch Aboriginal Corporation RNTBC v State of Qld [2015].

  • Fardon v Attorney- General for the State of Qld [2004] HCA 46.

  • Northern Australian Aboriginal Legal Aid Service v Hugh Burton Bradley and Northern Territory (2004) 218CLR146.

  • Acting for the Commonwealth Attorney-General’s Department and the Office of the Royal Commission in the Royal Commission and Board of Inquiry into the Protection and Detention of Children in the Northern Territory.

  • Acting for families of the deceased in inquests, particularly families of people who died in custody and/or people with mental illness and/or cognitive disability

  • Acting for national peak organisations in health and justice.

  • Working with First Nations communities to create innovative legal structures and arrangements that support self-determination and cultural decision-making.

  • Law and policy reform on Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder and acquired brain injury, in particular ensuring they are taken into account in law and policy in the areas of criminal justice, welfare and education.

  • Law and policy reform on the sexual assault communications privilege.

  • Law and policy reform on justice reinvestment.

  • The development of Australia’s first homeless person’s legal services.