Practitioners in Residence
The Sydney Law School practitioner-in-residence program engages and integrates the expertise of legal practitioners with the school's centres, staff, students, alumni and friends, as well as school partners and stakeholders, the University generally, and the wider community.
The program forms part of a greater scheme to help realise the School's vision and mission as embodied in its 2020-2025 strategy, Reimagining Sydney Law School, and bridge the gap between education and the profession.
Specifically, the School's vision is to transform the legal landscape and innovate through its central pillars - education, research and community engagement, and it's mission is to inspire legal minds within the Law SChool, the profession and beyond.
Through the program, the School is able to engage and build closer links with the profession by providing a space where the legal practitioner can further their development while also leveraging their expertise and knowledge in a way that engages and contributes to the scholarly life of the School.
Our current Practitioners in Residence
Liam is a Crown Prosecutor working in regional New South Wales and has since 2006. He routinely appears in more complex Supreme Court murder cases and more serious District Court trials throughout regional New South Wales.
Liam commenced his criminal law experience in 1995 at the Commonwealth DPP. He then worked for the Aboriginal Legal Service in regional New South Wales for three years. Liam has appeared for the ODPP in trial matters since 2001.
Liam has prosecuted and defended interstate and overseas, including working as a Public Defender at a UN War Crimes Tribunal that operated in Timor L’Este in 2002, where he represented a number of accused charged with crimes against humanity before the Tribunal, where the offending included massacres of people by machete and rape as a war crime.
Liam has worked on capacity building projects in the Pacific, in particular in Vanuatu, where he was involved in prosecuting a serving Prime Minister (Serge Vohor v Public Prosecutor Vanuatu CA No 1 of 2004) and successfully ran a legal argument in an appeal against the pardoning of a number of Prisoners by its serving President the same year (Public Prosecutor v Atis Willie Vanuatu CA No 2 of 2004).
Liam is researching AI enabled crime, in particular 'pig butchering' scams - this type of crime involves AI in a number of ways including real-time deep fake face-swapping and generative AI chatbots. He will be presenting a paper from that research to the International Association of Prosecutors (IAP) conference in Hong Kong in November 2024.
“The Prosecutor in Residence Program will give me an opportunity to closely examine how AI is being used in 'pig-butchering' scams and also how AI is being used to prevent, detect, investigate and prosecute the people behind these scams.”
“Attending the many research seminars and events on offer at the Law School, participating in the discussions, meeting the Law School staff and students and learning about their research interests have been highlights of the program.”
Liz Snell is the Law Reform and Policy Co-ordinator at Women's Legal Service, a state-wide specialist community legal centre that aims to achieve access to justice and a just legal system for women in NSW.
Liz has a background in human rights law, policy and education. Liz is passionate about working collaboratively to end gender-based violence and advocating for reforms to improve women's lives and their access to justice.
Liz has advocated for women's rights at the United Nations in Geneva on behalf of Women's Legal Services Australia.
During her residence Liz will further explore different accountability mechanisms and frameworks to support Governments and agencies to implement recommendations responding to gender-based violence.
"The residence provides a valuable opportunity to step out of the fast and busy pace of a specialist community legal centre with access to academics and resources to enable deep and critical thinking and reflection on how to improve systemic advocacy - which is so central to the work of community legal centres and improving access to justice," says Liz.
"Amongst the many highlights so far include the mutual learning that comes from meeting the Law School staff and students and discussing their research areas, sharing about the work of Women's Legal Service and the synergies between the two".
Teela Reid is a proud Wiradjuri and Wailwan woman, lawyer, essayist, storyteller and co-founder of @blackfulla_bookclub, a platform that honours First Nation’s Ancestors as the original Storytellers. Teela is a Sydney-based Senior Solicitor practicing in Aboriginal Land Rights litigation. She is also a campaigner for the Uluru Statement from the Heart.
In her two years working with the Sydney Law School, Teela has challenged students and staff to consider the ongoing impacts of colonial laws on First Nations and the importance of dismantling systemic racism in our society.
She has also highlighted how, despite colonisation, First Nations laws survive through oral stories, art, and ceremony.
“One of my objectives has been to emphasise the duality of legal systems in place on this continent; the co-existence of Western law and First Law is very real. We will be a much richer society if we are able to understand and value the continuation of our ancient laws first, because they have endured the test of time within our own cultural authorities.”