Georgia is a Senior Associate in the Mills Oakley Not-for-Profit, Human Rights & Social Impact team in Brisbane. Georgia has a focus on social justice and works on a mix of plaintiff and defendant work in the historical child abuse space, advising ASX-200 clients on Modern Slavery, and assisting NFPs and charities in times of crisis to assist them to manage governance, operational and reputational issues.
Georgia embraces her work in a sensitive, balanced, professional way. Her plaintiff clients are often highly emotionally labile, living with a broad range of mental health related diagnoses, and have deeply entrenched trust issues as a result of the trauma they have experienced as a child and over their lifetime. Her clients face a range of intensive pressures including homelessness, suicidality, substance abuse and lifelong psychiatric diagnoses and symptons. Georgia takes the time to gently build rapport and help her clients to trust that she is acting in their best interests as she carefully supports them through a process that can be fraught with difficulties, triggers and retraumatising situations. Georgia believes it is a privilege for any lawyer to represent individuals who have displayed the immense courage required to commence legal proceedings following traumatic experiences, and her client’s wellbeing and dignity are at the heart of everything she does. Georgia wants her clients to feel safe, seen, and heard.
Georgia is also sensitive to the needs of institutional clients’ commercial and missional priorities, and ensuring they are always represented in a way that is consistent with their organisational values and with the best practice principles identified by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. Georgia advises on complex issues regarding advice on indemnity and policy issues from an insurance perspective, substantive advices on negligence, vicarious liability and non-delegable duties of care (where the law has evolved signficantly in recent years), and on quantum and potential recoveries against third parties. Georgia handles cases with a high degree of sensitivitiy and commerciality.
Georgia regularly advises ASX-200 clients on Modern Slavery – a relatively new and dynamic area of law that many clients are still developing their capacity with. Georgia does so with great care and the substantial innovation required from dealing with a new area of law. Georgia is determined to create change in this space while assisting entities to build internal capabilities in a manageable way. She is mindful of the commercial pressures entities face when pulled into a new regulatory area and has assisted many of Australia’s largest entities to build new frameworks from scratch in a way that fits with the resources they have available, creating perpetuating efficiencies for future reporting periods.
Georgia has a geniune passion for the work she does; her humility and commitment mean she is zealous in her focus on how she can best understand, serve and support her clients.