Jessie Taylor

Jessie Taylor BA(Hons) LLB(Hons) MSc(HA) first signed the roll of counsel in 2011, winning the Daniel Pollak Readers’ Pro Bono Award for pro bono work in her first six months at the Bar.  Jessie enjoyed a broad and thriving practice in public, civil and criminal law before stepping away in 2016 to take up a role as Public Defender (Civil Justice) and then Associate Director at VLA Chambers.

She returned to the Bar in March 2021 from an Executive role in the COVID-19 Legal Directions, Advisory and Strategy team in the Department of Health (Victoria).

Jessie is a member of Bar Council, having been elected in 2022-23 and 2023-24. She currently sits on the Bar’s Counsel Committee.

Jessie’s approach to her work is trauma-informed. She speaks French and Hazaragi (Dari).

Areas of work

Jessie advises and appears led, unled and as leader in an array of public law and injury matters. She is a trusted advisor to government, especially on matters relating to health, mental health and disability law, executive power, statutory interpretation and the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006.

Jessie has advised government on a number of major legislative reform projects (including the design and development of the so called ‘Pandemic Management’ Bill 2021, and the Mental Health and Wellbeing Act 2022 which was enacted in response to the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System).

Jessie currently acts for the Plaintiffs in Phillip Krakouer v Australian Football League (AFL racism class action), and for Senator Mehreen Faruqi in her action against Senator Pauline Hanson under the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (Cth). She acts for the Australian Muslim Advocacy Network in its actions against Twitter Australia & X Corp, and Facebook Au & Meta.

She has a flourishing common law & personal injury practice. She has a particular interest in institutional liability, medical negligence, and the intersection of injury law with human rights and racism.

Jessie also has a growing practice in respect of the Illegal Logging Prohibition Act 2012 (Cth), supply chain hygiene, due diligence and other regulatory compliance issues facing importers. She acts for the Australian Timber Importers’ Federation in a range of advisory matters and in litigation.

Public Law

• Public and administrative law generally.
• Commissions & Inquiries.
• Government advisory and legislative projects.
• Disciplinary and regulatory matters including the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law.
• Suppression, pseudonym and confidentiality orders arising under the Open Courts Act 2013, the Witness Protection Act 1991 and in the inherent jurisdiction of the courts.
• Appeals including merits review and judicial review.
• Matters under the Vexatious Proceedings Act 2014.
• Human rights & matters involving the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006.
• Discrimination & matters under the Equal Opportunity Act 2010.
• Health law including mental health & compulsory treatment, disability & mental impairment (including matters under the Mental Health and Wellbeing Act 2022, the Guardianship and Administration Act 2019, and the Crimes (Mental Impairment and Unfitness to be Tried) Act 1997).
• Supervision and detention order proceedings under the Serious Offenders Act 2018.
• Matters in the parens patriae jurisdictions.

Injury Law

• Common law including medical negligence, institutional abuse, police torts.
• Personal injury matters including statutory benefits and public liability.
• Novel duties.
• Occupational Health & Safety.
• Advice on prosecutions.
• Dispute resolution (Jessie is on the Worksafe Panel of counsel).
• Class actions.

Resource Law

• Advice on compliance pursuant to the Illegal Logging Prohibition Act 2012 and Illegal Logging Prohibition Regulation 2012.
• Disputes arising between parties in import transactions and processes.

Education

Jessie holds Honours degrees in Law and Arts (Jewish Civilisation) from Monash University, and a Master of Science (Humanitarian Action) (University College Dublin & Université Paul Cézanne Aix-Marseille III through the EU’s Network On Humanitarian Action) with specialisations in Public Health & Epidemiology, Social Anthropology, Geopolitics, International Humanitarian Law and Management of Non-Government Organisations.

In 2018 she participated in the Justice & Society Symposium at the Cranlana Centre for Ethical Leadership.

Teaching & other work

Prior to being called to the Bar in 2011, Jessie was Associate to Justice Bromberg in the Federal Court of Australia.

Jessie has been a lecturer in the LLB, JD and LLM programs at Monash University since 2015, in subjects including Evidence, Ethics, Public law and Statutory Interpretation, Litigation and Dispute Resolution, Non-Adversarial Justice, and Legal Reasoning and Methods. She is passionate about holistic legal education that embraces the diversity and difference of students, and encourages young lawyers to embrace and pursue their intrinsic motivations in the study and practice of law.

She is co-creator of the documentary Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea.

She has been a Visiting Fellow at the Australian Human Rights Centre & an Honorary Research Fellow at the Monash Asia Institute. She has worked as a researcher in the Castan Centre for Human Rights Law, and as a tutor in the Indigenous Tutorial Assistance Scheme at Monash University.

Governance roles & memberships

Jessie was the President of the Victorian Council for Civil Liberties (Liberty Victoria) from 2016 to 2019. She is a former Director of Donkey Wheel Ltd (2018-2024) and a founding member of The Justice Project Inc (2003).

Jessie is a member of the Australian and New Zealand Association of Psychiatry, Psychology and the Law (ANZAPPL),  the Australian Institute of Administrative Law (AIAL), and the Australian-Hazara Lega Network.

Jessie was Chair of the LIV Refugee Law Reform Committee and sat on the Executive Committee of the LIV Administrative and Human Rights Law section (2009 & 2010).

And finally…

In her spare time, Jessie wrangles three hectic sons and a commensurate number of stray Lego pieces and orphaned football socks, and always has multiple books on the go. She is the proud Inaugural Chair of the Fitzroy Lions Soccer Club.

Jessie is a Foundation Member of Parnell’s Barristers. She read with Bill Gillies, and her senior mentor is Julian W K Burnside AO KC.

Selected cases

• Australian Muslim Advocacy Network  v Twitter Australia Holdings Pty Ltd & X Corp [2024] QCAT 201 (with Ron Merkel SC)
• Faruqi v Hanson  [2024] FCA 225 (leading Ms S Dhanji)
• Collins v Dart [2022] VCC 1932 (unled)
• Re GB; An application under the Crimes (Mental Impairment and Unfitness to be Tried) Act 1997 [2019] VSC 4 
• PBU & NJE v Mental Health Tribunal [2018] VSC 564 (with Emrys Nekvapil)
• Re X Y [2018] VSC 456 (unled)
• Re M P (No 2) [2018] VSC 299 (unled)
• PQR v Secretary, Dept of Justice and Regulation (No 1) [2017] VSC 513 (with (Her Honour) Kristen Walker QC)
• PQR v Secretary, Dept of Justice and Regulation (No 2) [2017] VSC 514 (with (Her Honour) Kristen Walker QC)
• Isbester v Knox City Council [2014] VSC 286 (unsuccessful on trial and on appeal to COA, successful in High Court Isbester v Knox City Council [2015] HCA 20) (with Richard Kendall QC)
• The Queen v Hudson [2013] VSC 184 (with (Her Honour) Jane Dixon QC)
• Victoria Police v Anderson & Ors (2012) Magistrates’ Court of Victoria (23 July 2012) (the Max Brenner protest case) (unled)
• MZYYR v Secretary, Department of Immigration and Citizenship [2012] FCA 694 (unled)