As a planning lawyer, Carolyn helps clients secure, facilitate and decide development and project approvals and operating licences. She acts for development, tourism infrastructure, liquor and government clients. Carolyn is a trusted advisor to local governments, with expertise in drafting local laws and planning instruments and a strong track record in resolving and litigating matters in the Planning and Environment Court and Court of Appeal. She is experienced in major project approval pathways, having advised on various development and infrastructure projects in South East Queensland the subject of State coordination and EIS, Ministerial call in, and special site-specific legislation. Carolyn has strong expertise in relation to vegetation clearing, working with koala habitat regulations and environmental offsets.
Based in Australia’s tourism capital, Carolyn has more than 20 years’ experience advising on tourism projects, theme park development and liquor licensing.
Carolyn is recognised for her leading skill set in working with government stakeholders in designing and implementing user-friendly regulatory compliance systems that enable officers to manage risk, meet their statutory obligations, evidence how they’ve done that and communicate outcomes. This is complemented by her strength in delivering practical knowledge and skills training.
Carolyn is an Associate Professor of Law in Environmental Law at Bond University, where she was a University Gold Medallist and international law moot coach. She has been a visiting lecturer at Nagoya University’s Graduate School of Law program in Cross-Border Institutional Design, delivering a postgraduate statutory drafting intensive.
She was named Planning and Environment Partner of the Year by Lawyers Weekly and has been recognised in Best Lawyers Australia for Planning & Environment Law and for Land Use & Zoning Law, 2021 – 2026 editions and in Doyle’s Guide Leading Planning & Development Lawyers and Leading Environment & Heritage Lawyers, 2021 – 2026 editions. Carolyn is a UDIA Women in Development Excellence Award winner. She sits on the UDIA Queensland Supply, Planning, and Environment Committee and on the Queensland Environmental Law Association Legislation and Policy Review Sub-Committee.
