Matt Floro, President
Matt Floro is a Special Counsel advising on environmental, planning, climate change and administrative law at EDO. He has practised environmental and planning law in Queensland, Victoria and New South Wales and has worked in the public, private and non-profit sectors, including at the Victorian Department of Premier and Cabinet, Clayton Utz and Corrs Chambers Westgarth. He holds undergraduate degrees in law and economics and master's degrees in law and public administration.
Since joining EDO, Matt has had carriage of several groundbreaking cases, including the Rocky Hill climate change litigation, the Bushfire Survivors climate action, the KEPCO Bylong climate action and major water litigation involving the upper Murray-Darling Basin. He has conducted litigation in the High Court, Federal Court, NSW Court of Appeal, NSW Land and Environment Court, Queensland Planning and Environment Court, and South Australian Supreme Court. In 2022, he received the Mahla Pearlman AO Award for Australian Young Environmental Lawyer of the Year and was named the Legal and Professional Category Winner at the Most Influential Asian-Australian Awards.
Dr Phillipa McCormack, Vice President
Phillipa is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in law at The University of Adelaide and adjunct lecturer at the University of Tasmania Law School. She researches in the areas of environmental law and public governance, with a particular focus on legal frameworks for biodiversity conservation, bushfire prevention and preparation, and climate change adaptation. Phillipa is a Global Associate with the Centre for Environmental Law and sits on the editorial boards of Frontiers in Climate: Law & Policy and the Journal of International Wildlife Law & Policy. She is a member of the Governance Board for Tasmania’s southern regional body, Natural Resource Management (NRM) South, Director of the Environment and Natural Resources Law research theme at the University of Adelaide, and a member of the Centre for Marine Socioecology.
Tom Webb, Secretary
Ayumi Shimada, Treasurer
Madeline Simpson, Director
Madeline is a leading Queensland based environment, planning and development lawyer with a practice that extends into the Northern Territory and South Australia. Madeline has more than 20 years’ experience and is a Special Counsel and a leader of the Herbert Smith Freehills Environment and Planning team in Brisbane. She works with clients in the resources and gas, renewables, electricity, infrastructure, property development and water sectors to provide strategic advice in relation to approvals and permits required for major projects and developments and has expertise in Planning and Environment Court appeals, Land Court appeals, judicial review applications, advising on environmental compliance, contaminated land issues, environmental impact statements, offsets and environmental incident response.
Madeline has a keen interest in environmental policy, advancing environmental and climate change law to facilitate protection of the environment and ensuring industry supports ecologically sustainable development. Madeline sits on the editorial committee of the Australian Environment Review, is a member of the Queensland Resources Council Environment Committee and chairs the Herbert Smith Freehills Diversity and Inclusion Committee in Brisbane.
Tiphanie Acreman, Director
Tiphanie is a barrister practicing at the Victorian Bar in the areas of property, planning, environment and building. She grew up in Tasmania and became aware of the role of the law in the environmental context during primary school when the Tasmanian Dams case was handed down.
She has undergraduate degrees from the University of Tasmania in Law and Science, majoring in Geography and Environmental Studies, and a Master of Laws from the Australian National University.
Prior to becoming a barrister, Tiphanie worked as an Associate at the Supreme Court of Victoria, and at the federal Department of the Environment. As a barrister, she has advised and appeared in environmental matters relating to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (Cth) 1999, the Planning and Environment Act (Vic) 1987, and the Environment Protection Act (Vic) 1970.
Cameron Holley, Director
Cameron is a Professor and Head of School for the School of Law, Society and Criminology at UNSW Law & Justice. He has practised environmental and planning law in Queensland and is the current co-chair of the International Network of Environmental Compliance and Enforcement Academic Committee. He is a current member of the Great Artesian Basin Stakeholder Advisory Committee and the Taskforce on Earth System Law, and a former member of The Australian Panel of Experts on Environmental Law.
Mark Beaufoy, Director
Mark Beaufoy is an environmental and planning lawyer with over 20 years’ experience. He is a Partner at King & Wood Mallesons. Based in KWM’s Melbourne office, his practice focuses on Commonwealth and Victorian jurisdictions, extending to projects in South Australia and Tasmania. He supports clients across a wide range of industries including infrastructure, energy and resources, real estate, agriculture, consumer, and manufacturing. Mark has wide experience in all aspects of environmental and planning law (including climate, water, heritage and biodiversity), including project approvals (infrastructure, energy, waste and resources), environmental regulatory compliance and due diligence, environmental and planning litigation. He has extensive experience advising on approval strategies for major infrastructure, industrial projects and residential development, including planning, environmental effect statement and impact assessment, environmental protection licensing, European cultural heritage, Aboriginal heritage, biodiversity, development and infrastructure contributions and associated work-in-kind agreements. Much of Mark’s recent work on major projects has been focused on the energy transition and new renewable energy projects, including closure and rehabilitation of former industry and power station sites (including coal fired power stations in the La Trobe Valley, Victoria) and new energy projects including electricity transmission, batteries, solar, onshore wind, and recently offshore wind. Since 2011 Mark has been consistently recognised as leading environmental lawyer by Chambers and in government law, planning and environmental law and climate change in Best Lawyers in Australia. In 2019, he was awarded Lawyer of the Year by the Australasian Land & Groundwater Association. Mark is also a sessional lecturer in the Monash University Law School, teaching Planning and Environmental Law and Climate Law. Mark has undergraduate degrees in Law and Arts from Monash University, and a Masters of Laws (Environmental Law) from Macquarie University.
Sophie Gordon, Director
Grace Huang, Director
Grace is a solicitor practicing in the Environment, Planning, and Communities team at Herbert Smith Freehills in Sydney, where she advises public and private sector clients in relation to a variety of environmental and planning law issues including judicial review, civil enforcement, land acquisition, and contaminated land management matters.
Grace has also worked extensively with a range of organisations including the Australian Law Reform Commission, the Environmental Defenders Office, and the Public Interest Advocacy Centre.
She is passionate about cross-sector collaboration, nurturing community amongst like-minded environmental law professionals, and developing robust debate around the reform of environmental law
Sophia Xian, Director
Sophia is a newly admitted lawyer with an interest in administrative law and environmental law. She is currently pursuing those interests as an Associate at the Land Court of Queensland and at QCAT.
Sophia volunteered for several organisations including NELA and the EDO throughout her time at university, conducting legal research for a parliamentary inquiry submission and producing a policy paper relating to cultural heritage protection legislation. As a student, she benefitted greatly from the events and mentoring programs run by organisations such as NELA.
Marija Gurlica, Director
Michelle Brooks, Director
Michelle is an experienced sustainability leader, passionate about providing high-level strategic advice to ensure companies are complying with their sustainability requirements to deliver outcomes that are consistent with the protection and promotion of their social licence to operate, and clearly disclosing these to their stakeholders.
She has vast practical experience in all elements of sustainability (health, safety, environment, native title, heritage and human rights) from operational level, corporate and as an external advisor. She holds undergraduate degrees in law and science from the University of Notre Dame Australia, and is currently studying Sustainable Capitalism and ESG at Berkeley Law School.
Michelle has a long history volunteering with NELA in Western Australia and Nationally, and a passionate advocate for the advancement of both hard and soft environmental law in Australia, and internationally.