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NT barrister elected president of Law Council of Australia
As law society leaders around the country begin in their new roles, Duncan McConnel (pictured) from the Northern Territory has taken the top job at Australia’s peak legal body.
Felicity Nelson
He has previously acted as president of the Law Society of the Northern Territory and became a member of the Law Council of Australia executive in 2009.
That same year, he joined the Bar and established a commercial litigation and workers’ compensation practice at William Forster Chambers in Darwin.
Prior to this, he had worked as a litigation partner for 11 years at CridlandsMB Lawyers (formerly Morgan Buckley).
McConnel, who is married with two children, is also fan of AFL football and acted as a director of the AFL in his home state for a number of years.
The current president of the Law Society Northern Territory, Tass Liveris, also works at William Forster Chambers. He was elected as president on October 29 last year and has been a member since 2011.
Meanwhile, the managing principal solicitor at the Victorian Government Solicitor’s Office, Katie Miller, became the new president of the Law Institute of Victoria this year. She began her term on January 1, replacing outgoing president Geoff Bowyer.
Matthew Verney took over as president of the Law Society of Tasmania four months ago. Verney owns a family law and child protection law practice and has been a member of the society for five years.
The Queensland Law Society holds elections every two years in October. Finance and banking consultant at Ashurst Michael Fitzgerald commenced as president in January this year.
The 2015 president of the Law Society of NSW is John Eades, a partner at Noyce, Salmon & D’Aquino. Eades practises in a range of areas including civil and criminal litigation and family law.
He has been a councillor since 2001 and this year chose the Motor Neurone Disease Association as the charity the society will support during his term.
The president of the Law Society of South Australia Rocco Perrotta took over from Morry Bailes on January 1.
Perrotta worked with the Director of Public Prosecution for 20 years, specialising in fraud and commercial prosecutions. He is now a principal and senior criminal lawyer at R Perrotta.
Senior associate at Herbert Smith Freehills Matthew Keogh began as president of the Law Society of Western Australia this month. Keogh is a corporate litigator with previous experience as a federal prosecutor.
The current president of the ACT Law Society is criminal law defence lawyer Martin Hockridge. He was elected in September 2013 and his term will expire at the end of this year.
