Rosalind Dixon
Director, Chair
Rosalind Dixon is a Professor of Law, at the University of New South Wales, Faculty of Law. She earned her BA and LLB from the University of New South Wales, and was an associate to the Chief Justice of Australia, the Hon. Murray Gleeson AC, before attending Harvard Law School, where she obtained an LLM and SJD. Her work focuses on comparative constitutional law and constitutional design, constitutional democracy, theories of constitutional dialogue and amendment, socio-economic rights and constitutional law and gender, and has been published in leading journals in the US, Canada, the UK and Australia.
She is co-editor, with Tom Ginsburg, of a leading handbook on comparative constitutional law, Comparative Constitutional Law (Edward Elgar, 2011), and related volumes, co-editor (with Mark Tushnet and Susan Rose-Ackermann) of the Edward Elgar series on Constitutional and Administrative Law, on the editorial board of the International Journal of Constitutional Law, Revista Estudos Institucionais, Public Law Review, and editor of the Constitutions of the World series for Hart Publishing. Dixon is a Manos Research Fellow, Director of the Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law, Deputy Director of the Herbert Smith Freehills Initiative on Law and Economics, Co-Director of the UNSW New Economic Equality Initiative (NEEI), and academic co-lead of the Grand Challenge on Inequality at UNSW. She previously served as an assistant professor at the University of Chicago Law School, and has been a visiting professor at the University of Chicago, Columbia Law School, Harvard Law School and the National University of Singapore. She is immediate past co-president of the International Society of Public Law..
She is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law and Australian Academy of Social Sciences, and ARC Future Fellow working on Constitutions and Democratic Resilience.
Clare Herschell
Director
Clare is a connector, community builder, and a leader in philanthropy and giving innovation. She enjoys convening people for meaningful conversations, catalytic change, and describes herself as a ‘collector of good eggs’. Clare’s reputation for creative idea generation and her ability to convene diverse groups behind common goals has made her a trusted strategist, mentor, and changemaker.
As a co-founder of Groundswell Giving she has helped cultivate both cultural leadership and over $7m of funds for climate action, connecting philanthropic resources with high-impact advocacy and solutions. Clare also founded the Atelier program at the Art Gallery of NSW and was a founding member of New Gen at Philanthropy Australia.
Grounded in creativity and inclusion, Clare has helped pioneer approaches that democratise giving, redistribute power, and amplify the many 'currencies' of philanthropy beyond money alone.
Clare is a Board Director of Groundswell Giving, a Trustee of the Art Gallery of NSW Foundation, and in 2025 was awarded UTS Alumni of the Year for the faculty of Design, Architecture and Building.
Dr Peter Cashman
Director
Dr Peter Cashman is a barrister and an Adjunct Professor of Law at UNSW Law. He was previously Professor of Law and Director of the Social Justice Program at the University of Sydney Law School. He has practised in Australia, the UK and the United States, and holds a Law degree and a Diploma in Criminology from the University of Melbourne and an LLM and a PhD from the University of London.
He has made significant contributions to law reform through his role as Commissioner with the Victorian Law Reform Commission in charge of the Civil Justice Review, and as a Commissioner with the Australian Law Reform Commission on its reference on class actions (jointly with Justice John Basten).
He was the founder and senior partner of Cashman & Partners, which merged to become Maurice Blackburn Cashman (now Maurice Blackburn Pty Ltd). He was the founding director of the Public Interest Advocacy Centre and more recently has served on the boards of PIAC and the Public Interest Law Clearing House (now Justice Connect). In addition, he has authored many publications about social justice law, class actions and public interest litigation, including Class Action Law and Practice, The Federation Press, 2007.
Rodney Dillon
Director
Rodney is a proud Palawa Elder from Tasmania and the Indigenous Rights Advisor for Amnesty International. He is on the Voice Referendum Working Group, Chair of the TAS Heritage Council, Chair Pakana Services, Co-chair of Weetapoona and a former Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commissioner (ATSIC) for Tasmania.
He has been a lifelong advocate for Indigenous People’s rights, particularly fishing and hunting rights, repatriation of Indigenous people's remains and the rights of people to live on their traditional homelands. Rodney was Tasmanian nominee for 2011 Australian of the Year, 2006 NAIDOC male Person of the Year and presented the 2013 Human Rights Individual Award at the Tasmanian Human Rights Awards.
Jess Hill
Director
Named marie claire’s 2023 Changemaker of the Year, Jess Hill is a journalist, author and educator who has achieved global renown for hergroundbreaking work on gendered violence. Her journalism in this area has won two Walkley awards, an Amnesty International award and three Our Watch awards.
Her first book ‘SEE WHAT YOU MADE ME DO’ became a bestseller and was awarded the 2020 Stella Prize and the ABA Booksellers Choice non-fiction book of the year (and was shortlisted for several other awards, including the Walkley Book Award and the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards). It has been translated into five languages and is ranked the highest-rated book by any Australian author by readers on Goodreads. In 2021, Jess presented a three-part television series adaptation of the book for SBS, which became the highest-rating factual program in the network’s history.
Since then, she has written a Quarterly Essay on how #MeToo is changing Australia, produced a podcast series on coercive control titled The Trap, and has produced and presented a three-part series on Consent, titled Asking For It. In her work as an advocate against gendered violence, Jess has made hundreds of media appearances and has fronted more than 350 events across the country, addressing community audiences as well as educating magistrates, police, health and family law professionals on coercive control.
Jennifer Robinson
Director
Jen Robinson is a barrister at Doughty Street Chambers in London with a broad practice in media law, public law and international law. She has appeared before the International Court of Justice, has given expert evidence at the UN and regularly engages with UN Special Mechanisms. Many of her cases and clients are high-profile and involve novel cross-jurisdictional and comparative law issues.
Jen has a particular focus on free speech and civil liberties, advising media organisations, journalists and whistleblowers and issues associated with journalist safety, unlawful detention and targeting. Her recent international advisory work includes advising the UN Special Rapporteur in relation to the investigation into the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, acting for the International Federation of Journalists in relation to attacks on Palestinian journalists, and advising Julian Assange and WikiLeaks in relation to US extradition proceedings.
She has committed part of her practice to climate change work, which has so far involved advising small island states on international law and climate, successfully challenging a sweeping anti-protest injunction to prevent protests against fracking and having the UK’s fracking policy declared unlawful on climate change grounds.
Before joining the UK Bar, Jen created the Bertha Justice Initiative, a global program to support strategic public interest and human rights litigation and educate the next generation of movement lawyers. Jen serves as a trustee of the Bureau for Investigative Journalism and on the advisory boards of the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights and the Bonavero Human Rights Institute at Oxford University.
Geoffrey Watson
Director
Geoffrey Watson SC is a barrister with a national practice. He has been counsel assisting in numerous inquiries and commissions, is currently investigating crime and corruption in the CFMEU, and was the principal counsel in the successful legal campaign to bring the children in detention on Nauru to Australia.
Geoffrey is a director of the Centre for Public Integrity, a regular contributor on ethics and standards in public administration, and a teaching fellow at the University of NSW.
Isabelle Reinecke
Executive Director
Isabelle founded Grata to unlock the power of the law to fight systemic injustice. Based at UNSW, Grata has supported communities to bring litigation to force corporate accountability on climate change, expose abuse in offshore refugee detention centres, and establish legal rights to humane housing in remote First Nations communities; and has facilitated over $1M in philanthropic case funding.
Isabelle is a Churchill Fellow and the 2021 Women's Leadership Institute of Australia Fellow, awarded to women "who are leaders in their respective fields, women who have innovative approaches and the courage, conviction and capacity to create real change". Previously Isabelle was Legal & Governance Director, GetUp and Solicitor, Clayton Utz
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